


Sparking New Feelings

by MetaArchiver



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Caustic is a Sociopath, Dark Sparks, DarkSparks, F/F, Slow Burn, Unimportant Filler Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25780177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetaArchiver/pseuds/MetaArchiver
Summary: With the arrival of the new top legend, Natalie Paquette, Renee gains a new friend, but things quickly change when she realizes that she has feelings for the woman.This is a slow burn that will take a bit to establish the relationship between Renee and Natalie. This is also my first fic :)
Relationships: Elliot Witt | Unknown Character, Wattson | Natalie Paquette/Wraith | Renee Blasey
Comments: 11
Kudos: 152





	1. Involuntary Descisions

**Author's Note:**

> This is set before Crypto, Revenant, and Loba join, but they might work their way into the plot eventually. I'm also using the "other legends that have no importance to the plot" style.

Mirage, Pathfinder, and Wraith were perched overlooking the entrance to one of the ridges of King’s Canyon. After a not so great start where the trio ran into a firefight against Octane, Bangalore, and Bloodhound the group had taken some time to patch up their wounds. They hadn’t run into any other squads on the way, and with one team of apex predators down, they were much closer to winning.

“Alright so we stay here and if anything goes wrong we use that beacon as a last resort.” Mirage said the whole thing while making hand motions explaining his plan, ending with pointing to the beacon that was just under their overlook.

“Mirage you don’t have to explain it like we’re new to this.” Renee scowled.

“What? I’m the one with the plans around here!” Mirage said, winking at Pathfinder.

“Your last plan didn’t go very well, friend.” Pathfinder said in his usually cheery attitude, before turning around to watch the canyon entrance through his sniper scope.

“Hey, you’re supposed to back me up here!” He faked a hurt tone back to the MRVN unit.

“You’re lucky I was there to save your ass, next time don’t rush into Bangalore’s smoke without telling us.” Renee crossed her arms.

“What? I was sure that my decoy would’ve distracted her so that she would be disorde- disor- confused.” Mirage gave up trying to say the word he wanted and crossed his arms to copy Wraith.

“Whatever, just get back to focusing on the match.” Renee grumbled as she raised her R-301 to watch the exit to the canyon.

“We have enemies coming our way, friends!”

Renee turned to watch the entrance Pathfinder was eyeing and sure enough a gas trap was inflating just in their view, no doubt caustic would be in her sights any second.

“Uhh guys I don’t have anything that’s good for long range.” Mirage looked to his teammates for help.

“Then hold your fire, Path and I will take care of it.” Renee didn’t even bother to look back at Mirage. She heard a grumble from him, but quickly she focused herself because Caustic came into view. Before the scientist could fully raise his gun to start firing on them, Renee had already pulled the trigger causing a rain of bullets to connect with him. The crackle of the charged sentinel Pathfinder was using signified that he had fired at the enemy. Lifeline had just barely peeked into view as Pathfinder shot. The bullet would have landed as a body shot on Caustic, but Lifeline had shown herself at the perfect time for the bullet to connect to her head. She was instantly downed from the shot.

‘She must not have had a good body shield or helmet,’ Renee thought to herself. By now Caustic has dipped out of view having somehow survived a volley of her bullets. ‘Typical of Caustic to take all of the good loot for himself.’

“Took one down, friends.” Pathfinder said, Mirage not waiting another second to begin sliding down the slope.

“Mirage!” Renee realized it was too late to stop him, she nodded to Pathfinder, then took off after Mirage, with the MRVN unit not too far behind her.

She got to Mirage and he was already finishing off the downed Lifeline, and Renee quickly took the opportunity to chase after Caustic, deactivating the traps he had placed along the way. After the amount of bullets that had him, he had to be weak, she hoped that a few had hit his legs so that he would be slowed, possibly having to limp to escape. Then she caught him stepping into a nearby house. With Lifeline taken care of, and his other teammate nowhere in sight, she knew this was her chance. 

She slid down the hill, switching to her mastiff as she ran right to the door of the house. As she was about to pass through the door at full speed, blue light sparked to life in front of her. Electric wires were now blocking the door, but with her momentum it was too late to stop herself, and there wasn’t enough time to brace herself as she passed through the wires.

The pain wasn’t as bad as she had expected but her muscles reacted uncontrollably and she was stuck in place as she slid to a stop in the middle of the large room. Even in her disoriented state she heard her voices tell her ‘on your right’ as she spun to face her target. It was Wattson, the newest legend. Renee had to give it to her, she was smart, she had made the ring after all, but she was still pretty new and Wraith was hoping to take her chances that the legend didn’t have perfect aim.

Renee pulled the trigger on her mastiff as Wattson opened fire upon the voidwalker with her Flatline. Wattson didn’t miss any shot, Renee was slightly impressed, but it was too late as Renee fired off a second mastiff shot, knocking the engineer to her knees. She winced as the pain from the flatline bullets finally got to her. Multiple were buried in her, and it hurt a lot. She was weak, and an easy target. She raised her shotgun to try to shoot at Wattson’s knockdown shield, but she was interrupted by her voices ‘get out of there’ she turned to run, following the advice of her voices, but she was weak and could only limp out of the way.

It was too late though, as the beep of Caustic’s gas grenade signified the appearance of gas all around her. ‘Of course he was hiding upstairs’ she thought to herself. As she reached the door she realized she needed to take a breath, she was going to pass out without immediate oxygen, so she took a breath, taking in a lot of gas as she did. It burned, everything hurt. She dropped to her knees right outside of the doorway, too weak to stand. Her head was spinning from the blood loss, and it felt like her lungs were going to give out on her.

“I’m down.” Renee croaked into her comms, barely being able form the sentence.

“We’re *cough* on our way, hold tight.” Mirage radioed back to her.

They must have gotten hit by a trap that she hadn’t seen, she was angry at Mirage for pushing forwards so quickly then realized that she was equally at fault when she chose to pursue Caustic.

“Slight problem Wraith” Mirage radioed back, she could clearly hear shots from nearby, they were already in another fight.

She heard the familiar heavy steps that Caustic made, expecting him to immediately be out the door to finish her off, but it never came. Instead the footsteps stopped inside, and then a thud as what Renee could only guess was him dropping to his knees.

“Hold on miss Paquette, you are of importance to this team, your work in this round must continue.” Renee was shocked, he was choosing to help Wattson over getting loot for himself. 

She took the time to start crawling away from the house, but she could still hear the two behind her.

“Thank you doctor Caustic! You really aren’t as bad as they say you are.”

Renee almost gagged at that comment, was Caustic brainwashing the new legend? Why does he care about her so much to set aside his self-centered actions? Her confusion at the doctor’s actions was cut short by him stepping outside.

‘Come on! Where are you guys?’ She was desperate, why were they taking forever?

He stepped in front of her. She didn’t even bother keeping her shield active as she knew what was next. “Damn it” she whispered as Caustic slammed her head to the ground. As her vision blurred she saw the scientist dropping an empty gas canister next to her.

* * *

Renee collected herself as she woke up. She tried to stand up but immediately fell back down. Not expecting wherever she was to be moving. She shook her head and focused her vision back to the moment, looking around. She was being redeployed, they had gotten her banner card. Waking up after being incapacitated from near death experiences in the area was always disorienting, but being sent right back in through redeployment was even worse. Renee tried to bury the tiredness her body felt as the hatch of the dropship opened.

She jumped down to join her fellow legends, almost immediately noticing that this wasn’t where Mirage’s “plan” had called for a respawn.

“Welcome back, friend!” Pathfinder’s screen showed a happy face, “there is some loot here for you to stock up on.”

Renee had to give it to them; they had definitely finished a squad while she was gone, and had won the 2v3.

“What was that about not running ahead?” She could tell that Mirage had been waiting to say that to her. “Ow.” Mirage recoiled as she punched his shoulder.

“Why are we so far away from the canyon?” Renee grumbled to the two as she dug into nearby death boxes picking out anything that caught her eye.

“You’re welcome by the way! We got chased by Gibraltar, luckily his squad had two lower ranked contenders.” 

Renee rolled her eyes. Mirage could be a dumbass at times, but Renee had to admit, he could be useful when he was needed. It was probably one of the main reasons why she put up with him enough to call him her friend.

“Let’s get going friends, the ring closes soon!” Then there was Pathfinder. The MRVN unit was the only legend that never annoyed her, so she gladly put up with him too.

Even though they were her friends, they still got the same cold treatment that is to be expected from her. Out of the arena, all of the legends knew to avoid her, and they definitely knew not to touch her. The only times she ever made contact with another legend, (outside of hand-to-hand combat), was the very rare occasion she actually gave pathfinder a high five, and the one time she actually gave Mirage a fist bump, after probably the hardest match she had ever competed in.

Pathfinder was right though, they had to get moving. It was one of the last rounds of the game, and there were only three squads left.

‘Behind the rock’

She looked at the rock behind her as her voices had told her, and motioned to Mirage and Pathfinder that something was there. They raised their guns and the three of them started quietly stepping around the sides of it. The contender hiding behind the rock didn’t stand a chance. Renee barely had a moment to see the unknown contender before she was already gone. The combined fire of the three eliminated the unknown legend in the blink of an eye.

Renee looked down at her wrist display.

“She must have been the last one in her squad.” Renee notes.

“One other squad left, we’ve got this in the bag.” Mirage sounded like they had already won.

“We haven’t won yet, stay focused.” Renee grumbled to Mirage as he focused back to the game.

“Who’s ready to fly on a zipline?” Pathfinder had set up a zipline to get the three of them into the next ring. 

Wraith stowed the Spitfire and Eva-8 that she had picked up and followed pathfinder to safety.

* * *

They eventually ran into the last squad. Of course, it was Caustic and Wattson. Luckily the duo hadn’t spotted them yet, so they hid themselves behind the cover of the watchtower. Caustic and Wattson had bunkered themselves in one of the buildings of containment, and showed no signs of planning on leaving yet. With where the next ring would be, Renee and her squad had the advantage as the two would have to come up to the top to meet them

“Did lifeline ever get called back in?” Renee turned to Mirage.

“Don’t think so, there was an ongoing firefight in that area. The banner card most likely expired before they could get her.” 

This was their chance to take an easy win, so they waited out the time that the ring took to close watching the zipline that led to the roof. The three readied themselves as they heard the familiar sound of someone traveling on a zipline. They immediately concentrated fire on Caustic who was quick enough to drop a gas grenade and make it hard to see him, but it was too late, as Renee was able to get the last few shots needed for the scientist’s strength to give out and he dropped to the ground.

‘The tunnel’ She looked up as her voices had guided her and she saw Wattson running for the large blast door of the tunnel leading to artillery. That’s where the last ring would close, and Renee could already see her putting up fences.

At first she thought that Wattson had left Caustic for dead, but she then realized what really happened.

“Ring closing” the speakers of the arena blared. This was the duo’s plan the whole time. Their only way to the doors was blocked by Caustic’s leftover gas. They wouldn’t have enough time to wait for the gas to disperse so they had to go through it. Renee and Mirage were left in a coughing fit as they reached the doors and prepared to go in, and while the gas didn’t affect Pathfinder as much, the corrosiveness of the gas definitely had an impact on the MRVN unit. They opened the large door and were immediately met with fire from Wattson. They had to get in, and fast, the problem was that the engineer was like a spider, as she had spun a web of electrical fences. Then didn't have enough time to clear them, and Wraith knew that they would have to take a risk.

“We go on three.” She looked at her teammates to make sure they were on board with it and they nodded back.

“1”

“2”

“3” Mirage and Pathfinder ran through the wires together while Renee entered the void to pass through safely. As she traveled she could hear gunfire from the entrance.

She made her way to a crate that would give her cover from Wattson, and as she returned from the void she heard Pathfinder on the comms, “I’m down friends!”

“Damn it” Wraith revealed herself from behind a crate and threw an arc star towards Wattson’s position. The projectile was destroyed midair. “She has a pylon!” She shouted to Mirage, but was quickly met with a response.

“I’m down.”

It was up to her, and she was not going to lose like this, especially not to Caustic’s team. As she waited behind her cover she came up with a plan. She braced herself as she jumped into the ring. The pain was immediate and extreme, as she wanted no time begging to make a portal. Quickly entering the void and walking to where Wattson was she appeared right in front of the engineer. There was a look of shock on the blond woman’s face as Renee materialized out of thin air, with a portal right behind the voidwalker. Renee had surprised her at the perfect time, as Wattson was just finishing charging her body shield with a shield battery. Wraith wasted no time dodging behind the engineer and kicking her forward into the portal and quickly jumped on top of the crate that Wattson was using to turn and fire on the engineer who was now barely outside the ring. She stood no chance, and quickly the apex games’ system announced “We have an Apex Champion.”

Renee hopped off the crate and turned to help her teammates up, luckily they hadn’t blacked out in the time it took for Renee to finish the fight. As the ring retracted they waited outside for a dropship to come and pick them up.

* * *

It was the end of the week, meaning the legends would have a couple day break from the competitions. It had become somewhat of a tradition for the group of the top legends to meet at Mirage’s bar after the last game of the week. Renee was tired, but she still brought herself to the party since it was customary for Mirage to give out free drinks to the best performing legends of the week, which happened to be Renee, Wattson, and Lifeline. Even with the not-so-good final round, the engineer and combat medic had done very well in the games earlier in the week, just like Renee.

She wasn’t always comfortable there, since all the legends, besides bloodhound, called each other by their actual names outside the area, but as Renee kept up her cold personality, and refused to tell anyone her real name, she was just referred to as Wraith. Besides, could she still even call herself Renee? She had so much uncertainty about it that she sometimes tried to forget the name.

“About time you showed up! I was worried you’d be a no show.” Mirage winked at her.

“I’m just here for the free drinks.” She rolled her eyes as one of Mirage’s holograms walked up to him and handed him a drink.

“For me? Aww you shouldn’t have.” He grabbed the drink from the hologram, as it disappeared.

“Elliot.” Renee glared at him.

“Oh right!” He jumped over the counter and get her a drink.

“Great win today friends!” Pathfinder had finished talking to the group with Ajay, Octavio, and Makoa, having come to join his winning team.

“Nice sniping today.” Pathfinder’s console showed a happy face at the compliment from Renee.

“Did I hear that right? Did Wraith just compliment someone outside of the area?” Renee glared at Mirage as he backed away afraid she was about to stab him.

Renee’s glare was interrupted as she heard a voice that caught her interest.

“Sorry we couldn’t get you back today, I tried but I almost was eliminated in the process.” The French engineer was talking to Ajay.

“It’s fine Natilie, yuh did great today!” Ajay laughed at the young woman’s pep.

Natalie instantly began smiling, and being content with Ajay’s response disappeared into the bathrooms.

‘Behind you’ Wraith didn’t even turn around when she heard the warning from her voices, instead moving aside as she knew it had to be Caustic, showing up late to the party. His heavy footsteps passed as she didn’t even bother to look in his direction.

“Yuh think twice before leavin’ me for dead again.” Ajay pointed at Alexander, “and don’t make Natalie into anotha version of yuhself, yuh hear me? At least she cares about her squadmates.”

“It was not worth the danger to try to get your card, so I had to get Miss Paquette out of there.”

“Brotha, you are never going to win if you keep leaving your teammates like that.” Makoa pitched into the conversation, with his normal cheery attitude

“Yeah, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you can win every game alone.” Elliot had joined in on the conversation, he winked at Wraith and Pathfinder.

“I don’t concern myself with the opinions of insects, besides we were close to victory today.” Alexander turned to glare at Elliot.

Renee walked up to Alexander and stared him in the eyes. “At least she shows some promise, it would be a shame it was wasted following you.” A slight look of surprise appeared on the faces of a few of the legends, not expecting Renee to speak. “There’s a reason you haven’t won any games for a couple months.”

Renee had to admit, even though she was new to the area, Natalie was already showing her skill in battle. If Renee hadn’t had her portal ready, there’s a good chance that she would have lost, meaning the engineer would have conquered a 1v3. Renee, couldn’t understand how anyone could care about a sociopath like Alexander, or why he seemed to give special treatment to Natalie.

“I do not care about placement in the games, all I care about is scientific progress, and as long as Miss Paquette is here, her work is extremely important to the scientific community. Your opinions mean nothing to me.” Alexander glared at Renee.

‘So that’s the reason why’ Renee thought to herself, ‘he treats her like he does because of her engineering work. Natalie’s upbeat and friendly personality means that she can’t see that that’s the only thing he cares about.’

“What’s going on?” Natalie had just returned, with a quizzical look on her face when she saw the large gathering.

“Just discussing today’s games.” Gibraltar smiled at the engineer.

No one was going to tell her the truth.

“You should have seen the look on Anita’s face when I came running out of her smoke.” Mirage smiled.

“And then I knocked you down in seconds after.” Bangalore was going along with the conversation Mirage was starting.

“Well… yeah, but I still caught you by surprise.”

“I didn’t expect you to be stupid enough to run through my smoke.”

“Pff… well… we still won so ha!”

Bangalore rolled her eyes, and Natalie giggled at their bickering.

Renee didn’t want to be a part of the group anymore and went and sat down in a booth. Mirage quickly made his way over.

“You seem a little off today, is everything alright?” Mirage sounded genuinely concerned.

“What makes you say that?” Renee raised her eyebrow.

“Well I mean, you kinda said more words there than I’ve heard you say anytime outside of the arena, and not to mention you seemed pretty aggressive with Mr. Nox there.”

At first Renee just glared at him like always then, dropped her expression and sighed.

“I can’t stand having him on my team with his refusal to help his teammates, the last thing I need is someone just like him running around.” Renee hoped he would be satisfied with that answer.

“You know Natalie is different than him wh- … you really haven’t interacted with her at all have you?”

“It’s not like we’ve been on a team yet.”

“She’s nothing like Nox, I doubt his influence will rub off on her that much.” Mirage waited for a response, but Renee remained in place, with her arms crossed. Mirage sat down at the booth, and Renee eyed him.

“Too close, back up,” she said.

“Wraith, there’s something else bothering you, what is it?”

Renee had already opened up too much to him, and she was not ready to say anything else. Besides, there was no way that she was going to tell him that they shouldn't treat Natalie like a child and hide the truth from her, she was a top performing legend and she had a right to know…

Wait. Why did she care so much about this? Why did she suddenly care about the situation? Renee never cared for anyone, so why did she care so much now? Deep down did she feel that it wasn’t right? Was she subconsciously connecting with Natalie’s situation? Renee was racking her brain for an answer to a question that now seemed more important to her, and in doing so forgot to keep up her neutral expression.

“Wraith, seriously what’s wrong?”

“You don’t need to know.” She found herself scooting away from him.

Elliot was about to say something when someone walked up to their table.

“That was a great game today!” Natalie had come to talk to the winning team.

Elliot looked away from Renee, “You sure put up one hell of a fight.”

Natalie had a large grin on her face, “and Wraith..” she paused for a moment after saying the name, probably finding it weird to call someone by their code name outside of the arena, “that was an amazing maneuver you did today, it really caught me off guard.”

Renee had managed to collect herself and kept up her blank expression, just nodding at Natalie’s compliment.

“You’re possibly the best legend here, I’d love for you to teach me some tricks sometime.”

Renee could only respond by looking down. She wasn’t quite sure what to say, but was looking for a polite way to reject the offer.

Elliot spoke up “That might not be the best thing, Wraith’s pretty busy so I doubt that she’d…”

“Sure.” Renee didn’t know why she said it, but as she was about to say no she looked at Natalie, accidentally making eye contact. There was something there that just messed with her head, and just like that she said the one thing she didn’t want to.

“Really? Oh thank you! Would tomorrow work?”

Renee was spaced out, and absent-mindedly nodded to Natalie’s suggestion. 

“Great! I’ll see you at the training grounds at noon tomorrow!”

Natalie hummed as she walked away, going to go rejoin the main group.

Renee snapped herself out of her trance to look over at Elliot. His mouth was wide open in shock.

“Did you just…?”

“Since when did you…?” He couldn’t get a complete sentence out due to the pure confusion he was experiencing.

“Did you just agree to help someone? And you barely know them!” Mirage had a slightly excited tone, “whatever’s up with you tonight, I like it!”

Renee couldn’t think straight, she put a hand over her forehead as she tried to think over what just happened. Did she really just accept it? What was happening to her? Why was she now suddenly breaking. She was slightly scared, she felt like she no longer could control herself. She had to get away from here and clear her mind.

“Where are you going?” Elliot tried to call for her, but she wouldn’t stop waking away. She made her way out the door, and then began to run, she just wanted to go home and collect herself. What was happening to her? Why now?

* * *

She didn’t stop running until she got to her assigned housing unit. There wasn’t much decoration in it, but she really didn’t care. She wasn’t one for decoration anyways.

She went straight to her bed and started to collect herself. Renee realized how tired she actually was. Her voices made sure that she didn’t get much sleep, as when she would get drowsy, they would get noisy. She sighed, slightly shaking with each breath. There was only hope that this was because she was tired, and that she would be able to think straight in the morning. Then the moment with Natalie came to her mind.

She wanted to just disappear, not show up tomorrow, hide herself away until the games next week. But she knew she couldn’t, she’d hurt Natalie if she did, and on top of that she’d be no better than Alexander. She had to go through with it, just one day of training the younger legend, and then everything would be back to normal. She closed her eyes, too tired to change out of the clothes she wore to the bar, just waiting for the voices to start their nightly humming. But they never did, it was the first night in a while that she had peace.

Renee quickly began drifting off to sleep., but as she did she kept one image in her mind, the moment she looked into Natalie’s eyes. They were blue like she had never seen, and the smile on the blonde’s face confused Renee even more. How was she so comfortable talking to Wraith, who she had never met, and only had a reputation of being cold and harsh.

Maybe she would find out in the morning, but for now, sleep called her, as she gave into her tiredness.


	2. Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a visit from Elliot in the morning, Renee goes to train with Natalie, but it doesn't go quite as smoothly how Renee hoped it would.

Renee slowly opened her eyes. She looked over at the clock on the bedside table, it was 10:11. She felt completely refreshed, something she was not used to. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gotten more than 7 hours of sleep, but she was used to it, and was able to fully function after a cup of coffee in the morning.

But this was something else, having arrived back home at 8:30 last night, she had gotten somewhere around 13 hours of sleep, which she thought to be impossible for her. All the tension in her muscles was gone, and so was her headache as well.

She also felt… different, on a deeper level, like her mental struggle to keep her thoughts, emotions, and feelings suppressed had relaxed as well.

In the time that she was asleep she had received multiple messages from Elliot. The first was sent within a couple hours after she had left.

“I know you're not really one to talk things out, but if you want to talk about whatever is bothering you, just tell me.”

She definitely didn’t want to talk it out with Elliot, and even if she did she wouldn’t want to disturb him this week, as he had been going on and on the entire week about his “perfect vacation” with his girlfriend. She didn’t know exactly when he was to leave for his trip, as she had tuned him out whenever he had talked about it. He was lucky though, he had found someone that cared about him for who he was, not just because he was a legend.

How would Renee ever find someone like that? She was barely comfortable opening up even slightly to anyone, and on top of that she rarely trusted anyone.

The next couple messages were from earlier this morning.

“Did you at least make it home safely?”

“Maybe just some sort of indication that you’re alright?”

She knew she shouldn’t have said anything to Elliot. Why didn’t she just try to tell him that she was fine, and try to push him away? She started opening up to someone and it just backfired against her, ending up with her agreeing to do some training with Natalie, which she didn’t want to do, or… did she really not want to do it? Was there some sort of reason that she involuntarily responded the way she did? Maybe it wasn’t all that bad, as it would be a good time to see how well Natalie would function as a teammate for her. While she was at it, she would also be able to show her some team strategies to make sure that Nox’s self-centered tendencies didn’t rub off on her.

Renee began to think of how she should respond to Elliot’s message when there was a knock at the door. She quickly tied her hair into her normal bun, not wanting whoever was there to see her hair down.

She hesitantly cracked it open by the slightest amount, ready to shut it if the person that on the other end was someone she didn’t want to deal with.

It was Elliot.

“A response would have been nice.” Elliot was definitely annoyed with her.

“Elliot, I just woke up. I fell asleep before you messaged me last night.” She opened the door the rest of the way and looked down. “Sorry I didn’t respond.”

After a moment of silence she looked up at him, he was clearly waiting for her to do that. She had a soft expression on her face. “And I don’t need to talk it out.”

He sighed. “Well, at least it seems you are doing better, I can’t remember the last time you didn’t look extremely tired on a Saturday.” His expression changed to his normal smile. “Well I hope you can figure out what’s going on. I'm kinda glad you turned down that offer though, cause I won’t be around for the next week.”

“What?”

“Yeah I had to request it but I've been given up to two weeks break, although I see no reason to leave for more than one week. We’re supposed to be leaving right now to go on the trip, but I wanted to check in with you.”

“Wait, why are you staying so long?”

Elliot turned and grabbed something out of the backpack he was wearing, a small velvet box.

“Oh.. OH!” Renee let out a slight gasp.

“Yeah I’m gonna ask her,” he paused, and his small smile turned into a large grin “which means that I won’t be able to carry you in the games this week, so… good luck.”

“I think you’re the one that’s gonna need luck.” Renee smiled a bit as she raised her eyebrow.

“Am I seeing this right? Miss ice queen herself is smiling?”

“Oh shut up Elliot,'' Renee shook her head and let out a small laugh.

“See you soon,” he started walking away when he quickly turned his head back “good luck with your training today.”

Renee rolled her eyes as she closed the door. ‘Well, there goes my only real friend,’ She felt a buzz and pulled out her phone, it was a message from Natalie.

“I hope noon works for you, I don’t think we quite established a time last night. I would have messaged you earlier, but I had to get your number from Elliot”

“Yeah that’s fine.”

Renee looked at the clock. It was 11:03, she needed to get ready, and change into more fitting clothes.

* * *

Renee arrived at the training area 20 minutes early, having put on a more workout friendly outfit consisting of a black short sleeve shirt, and purple shorts. Not sure what to fully expect that day, she also brought her void panel which she attached to her left arm, just in case she needed to use her abilities.

She almost immediately remembered why she didn’t go here very often. She was challenged by an overconfident legend to a round of hand to hand combat in the close quarters cage.

She accepted, seeing that multiple other of the contenders were waiting nearby, clearing hoping to watch her get beaten by this challenger. He must have been popular with the upstarts, but she had never heard of him, so she was gladly willing to put him in his place, and besides, she had some time to waste before Natalie would show up.

The challenger was a lot taller than her, but if height decided how good you were in the arena, Renee wouldn’t be where she was. There was a reason that Renee was ranked as highly as she was; her ability to get in and out of fights safely.

The automatic system beeped, signifying the two to begin, and the challenger quickly realized that he had bitten off more than he could chew. Renee sidestepped all of his punches while returning blows of her own, and with her strength, the bulky challenger was defeated quicker than she expected, finishing the fight with a final blow to his head.

“Anyone else?” Renee grumbled to the crowd.

A few of them immediately walked off, while others looked down at the bruised and unconscious man in front of them before deciding to leave. One spectator remained though.

They let out a giggle followed by a familiar voice, “Was that your warm up?” Natalie had apparently watched the fight from the side, and was waiting for Renee. “Is this why I never see you here?”

“Pretty much.”

Renee sat down on a nearby bench.

“You’re still okay with doing this right? You seemed spaced out when you agreed, and made a weird face after. It bothered me a little bit, so I eventually tried to go back and double check, but you were already gone… and I didn’t really have your number to where I could have messaged you to make sure until this morning.” Natalie had a soft tone to her voice, Renee knew she was genuinely concerned.

That was a first, someone who cared how Renee felt, well… besides Elliot. Natalie’s heart was definitely in the right place. Renee was just glad that she was nothing like Nox.

“No, I’m fine, I was just tired last night.” Renee let out a sigh of relief, a bit of her worry for how the day would go has been cleared.

“If you would be alright with it, I’d rather skip over the normal training. I’ve been doing that all week with Doctor Nox, and I want to try something else.”

Renee lifted her eyebrow, waiting for Natalie to finish.

“I’d rather learn some team-based strategies and tactics. I know you’re good at that, while Doctor Nox… isn’t,” Natalie began to frown, “he refuses to work on team strategies with me, instead he tells me that the time we would spend on that would be better used on his scientific work.”

“Sure.” This is what Renee wanted to help her with anyways, she was just glad Natalie was the one to bring it up. “It’ll be best to do this in the practice range.”

Natalie was already back to smiling, she nodded, and began skipping off toward the range, stopping and turning after a few seconds to make sure that Renee was following her. Renee smiled at seeing the engineer's excitement, getting up from the bench and following Natalie.

* * *

Renee and Natalie made their way to a secluded part of the range, Renee sent Natalie off to get a few arc stars and other ordinances for a routine that she planned on showing later.

“I didn’t know you went outside anymore.” It was Anita. “You’re not one to be near other people, so why are you here with her?” Her tone was harsh.

“She asked me to teach her a few things, why don’t you mind your business Williams.” Renee crossed her arms.

“You’d think she’d choose someone who actually interacted with others outside of the arena. Almost any one of us would be a better choice.” Anita wasn’t backing down.

“Why do you care so much?” Renee was starting to get aggressive with her words, Anita usually didn’t clash with her this much.

“With Caustic already acting like her guardian, the last thing she needs is another bad influence like you, and I’m not talking about arena skill, I’m talking about life skills. She’s been through a lot, and we try to make it nicer for her here. You aren’t exactly a ray of sunshine, quite the opposite actually.” Anita may have been right about Natalie needing friends, her joining the games was due to her father’s death after all. Anita knew nothing about Renee though, just because she never showed anything didn’t mean she was just some cloud of gloom.

There was a fire inside Renee, it was growing with each second she stared Anita in the eyes. She wasn’t going to take this any longer.

“Well then maybe stop treating her like a child, she’s a grown adult and can definitely have a personality of her own. You talk about her like she’ll shatter if you say the wrong thing about her.” She glared at Anita “by the way, nice cover up last night. We wouldn’t want Natalie to know what we were talking about, now would we?”

Anita was now just as on edge as Renee.

“Then prove me wrong.” Anita paused for a moment, “head case.” She tried to get as much on Renee’s nerves as possible with that last insult, then walked away.

Renee squeezed her fists shut, she wanted to chase after Anita, maybe punch her in the face while she was at it, but her thoughts were interrupted by her voices ‘behind you.’

She spun to face the other direction, Natalie was peeking out from the corner of a nearby rock. When she noticed Renee saw her, she walked out from her hiding spot.

“Do they always treat you like that?” She was frowning.

“Not usually, it’s just Anita’s on edge with Nox already around you all the time...” Renee relaxed her muscles and let go of her anger, she sighed, “She doesn’t think I’m a good influence.” Renee almost felt like she was right. There was a feeling of emptiness now that her anger was gone.

“What? That’s not true!” Natalie looked at Renee with a frown on her face. “Everyone acts like they’re my parents, and I know they are just trying to help me since…” she paused, not wanting to say what came next, “... Papa died.”

“But I can take care of myself! Besides, I asked you to help me for a reason!” She then looked to the side. “Thanks… for sticking up for me.”

Renee could feel her cheeks getting warmer, and a slight feeling of embarrassment came with it as well. “I uhh…” she paused, “how much of that did you hear?”

“Most of it.” She looked at Renee, there was definitely something bothering the blonde. “What… What were you guys actually talking about last night?”

Renee hung her head, finding out that something was hidden from her had definitely hurt her.

“It started as talking about how bad Nox is with his teammates, but a few of us ended up arguing with him about his influence over you.” Renee looked up at Natalie, “it ended with Nox saying that he didn’t care about arena placement, only scientific progress from the both of you. The conversation really wasn’t that bad, it just…” Renee paused, not sure if she wanted to open up like this, but she realized that she couldn’t stop, “it bothered me that something would be kept from you like that.”

“I mean I can see why, I’m not a child!” Natalie paused for a moment and put her hand on Renee’s shoulder, “thanks for telling me.”

Renee quickly pulled away from the touch, surprising Natalie. Renee froze for a moment, Natalie’s face changed to one of concern.

“I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have done that.”

The tension of the moment passed for Renee, and she saw Natalie’s discomfort. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just not used to contact like that.”

“Let’s just get started ok?” Natalie nodded at the suggestion.

* * *

It went well for a long time. Both women cheered up after they started going over some strategies. Renee started with basic things like call outs she could make to her teammates when she needed help, and what certain requests from her teammates meant, and eventually that got to strategies for retrieving banner cards and coordinating pushes with her teammates. Natalie wasn’t very good at that last one, but Renee knew she would get better at it as she got more experience in the arena.

They were there for a lot longer than they expected, it was 5:00 before they even checked the time, although they knew it was late by how low the sun was in the sky. They were packing up to leave when Natalie tripped over a small crack in the ground. She fell onto Renee and brought her down as well. They both landed on the ground with a thud. Natalie put her hand to her head, grabbing her bearings before realizing she was on top of Renee, and quickly got up.

“I’m so sorry!” The embarrassment showed on Natalie’s cheeks.

Renee groaned, and got up as well, “it’s fine, are you okay?”

“Oui.”

Renee felt a surge of pain in her arm, she looked down and her void panel was sparking. She quickly removed the piece of technology.

“Oh no!” The blonde realized what she had done “Nice one Natalie!” She was talking to herself, maybe she didn’t mean to say it out loud.

Renee grumbled some uncompresensible words then said, “I’ll just get it fixed tomorrow.”

“Well, I broke it, at least let me help fix it.” Renee looked up at Natalie waiting to see what she meant.

The blonde crouched down, inspecting the sparking, price of technology. She turned off the power then held the thing close to her face for a close look.

“It seems the power source has been damaged and the energy pathways leading out have been misshapen. I could get it fixed for you tonight, it would only take me about an hour, if you wanted to come by later and pick it up.”

Renee thought for a moment, but before she could say anything Natalie cut in again.

“This way you won't have to pay for the repair, I’ll just fix it in my workshop.”

Renee sighed “fine.”

“Great! Meet me at the community workshop at 7:00.”

* * *

Renee went home and showered, then changed into more comfortable clothes; a longer pair of pants and a sweatshirt on top of her long sleeve shirt. She was ready just in time to head over to the workshop.

The building was in the legend housing section, so it wasn’t that far of a walk. With Natalie and Alexander being the only top legends to really do any work like that, they were given their own rooms in the workshop. Renee had only been in their once. The last time she had seen it, Nox had transformed his space into something that more resembled a lab, including glass looking into the hallway, having taken out the wall there. Not much had changed since, and luckily Nox wasn’t there, so she turned to knock on the door to Natalie’s workspace.

Renee waited a few moments as she heard some clanks and crackles from inside. Natalie opened the door slightly to greet her visitor and lifted her welding goggles.

“Oh, Wraith, it’s you.” Natalie smiled at her visitor. There was something about her smile that was so comforting to Renee, she wished she could see it more. Wait? Did she really just think of that?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Natalie, “give me a moment.” The blonde shut the door and Renee waited a moment before it was reopened. She had the void panel in her hand, it looked like it was fixed.

“Your old power source was busted beyond repair, so I’ll have to put a new one in, the specific type your panel needs is one I don’t have in here, but I do have one at home if you can come with me really quickly.”

Renee nodded and began to follow Natalie outside to her home. The blonde opened the door and invited Renee in before quickly disappearing down the hallway. Natalie definitely had a bit of passion when it came to decorating her home, it made Renee realize just how bland her house was.

Renee began to zone out and paused for a moment to take in everything that had happened that day. She had gone from talking to Natalie for the first time last night, to being… friends? Is that what this was? She couldn’t remember the last time she spent this much time with someone and they treated her with the kindness that Natalie was treating her with. Renee had begun their training today talking with the same lack of emotion that she normally did, but by the end she found herself talking to Natalie like she would have with Elliot on one of her better days, and with Elliot gone for the week she was slightly glad that she had someone to talk to like this.

Renee was dragged out of her thoughts once again by the sound of returning footsteps. “It’s all fixed.” Natalie handed the void panel to Renee, who put it on.

“Sorry, again about breaking it.” Natalie rubbed the back of her head, still a little bit embarrassed about it.

“It’s fine, thank you for fixing it.” Renee turned to see the engineer looking away, with a frown on her face, “is something wrong?”

“What? Oh! No, I’m fine, I’m just hungry is all, I haven’t eaten since my early lunch today so I was thinking about food.” 

“Well, I should get going then, I need to do the same.” Renee turned to begin leaving.

“You haven’t eaten yet either?” Natalie had a look of surprise on her face, which quickly turned to a warm smile.

“Well, if you don't have any plans you are welcome to join me for dinner, I have a lot of extra pasta from when Doctor Nox was over for dinner a couple nights ago. I’d rather get rid of it soon, and there’s a lot left.” Natalie was patiently waiting for a response.

Renee didn’t know how to respond though, she wasn’t sure if she was comfortable with this. The thing is that she had never been invited over for dinner like this, and she felt… anxious. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about such an offer. In her thoughts she ended up drifting back to her confrontation with Anita earlier, and how she said that Renee wasn’t the friendliest. It was true, but…

...maybe Renee was tired of it. Tired of keeping to herself, tired of pretending she didn’t have emotions and feelings, and tired of turning others away. All she did was hurt others when she did that. If Elliot hadn’t showed up earlier that morning to check on her, he would have been worried about her the entire time he was on his trip, and…

...she hurt Natalie too. The one person that was being so kind to her, she pulled away at the slightest touch earlier, and while Natalie had hopefully forgotten about the moment, Renee had still hurt her for a bit. How long until she hurt someone’s feelings to the point that they wouldn't forgive her? As long as she would keep this up, she’d hurt others. She tried to keep others away to avoid it, but it ended up causing exactly what she didn’t want, as she still did it to those close to her. Maybe she could change one thing about herself, try to be more open with her friends, return the kindness that they treat her with. She just wanted to let out all of these emotions that she kept trapped up, she was never good with emotions, but they just kept coming at her today.

“If you don’t want to stay that’s fine, I just offered it since you’re already here, and it would be a little payment for your help today.” Natalie’s voice brought her back to the present.

This was Renee’s chance, just a one word difference would be the change she wanted. Besides, did she really want to go back home to another night of heating up whatever frozen, pre-boxed food she had in her freezer?

“Okay.” Renee looked Natalie in the eyes, the blonde seemed a little surprised at first, but then a large smile appeared on her face. It made Renee feel… happy.

Natalie heated up two bowls of the pasta, she hadn’t specified what it was, but Renee recognized it as spaghetti with meatballs, something she enjoyed. Even though Nox was… the worst, Renee had to admit that it tasted good.

This was the first time in the day that Renee truly took the time to look at the woman sitting at the table across from her. Her short, blonde hair was fully uncovered, Renee had never really paid attention to it outside of the arena, and in there it was almost fully covered by her jumpsuit. A slight bit more of the scar on her face was visible, and Renee would most likely be able to see the part of the scar running down Natalie’s arm, but it was covered up by her orange jacket. Even though that jacket was used inside the arena, Natalie seemed to still wear it normally. With the jacket unzipped, she could see Natalie wearing a plain white shirt underneath. Then there were the jeans she was wearing, which were now blocked from view by the table. Renee found herself comparing the two of them, wishing she could have Natalie’s natural beauty and personality, but she was herself, she always thought of herself that way. Why would anyone want Renee?

Neither spoke for the first couple minutes, just silently eating, occasionally making eye contact, but overall it was very awkward. Renee decided to break the silence with a question that she had been wanting to ask the whole day.

“Natalie?”

“Quoi?”

“Why… have you been so friendly with me, even though everyone always talks about how unfeeling and cold I am?” She choked on each word, not sure if she should say the next one, but she didn’t stop herself.

Renee had definitely asked the engineer something that she wasn’t ready to answer, and she could see Natalie thinking of her response.

After what felt like hours of silence, the blonde responded, “I guess I was hoping that they were wrong,” she made eye contact with Renee, “although from today, it seems that I was right.”

Renee felt her cheeks warm up. Was she… blushing?

“Before I joined the games, I used to watch them with Papa. I always looked up to you, and hoped I could meet you one day, maybe fight alongside you as a top contender in the games.” Natalie couldn’t hide her embarrassment at admitting it, “well, now I’ve met you, and…” she trailed off, not wanting to finish her sentence.

“Thank you.” Renee said to Natalie

“Hm?” Renee had clearly brought her out of whatever she was thinking about.

“You’re one of the only contenders to give me a chance and treat me like… well… a person.”

“Do the others not treat you well?”

“Well, not when they first meet me. A few have gotten more indifferent about me, such as Ajay and Octavio, while others still don’t really trust me.” Renee shrugged.

“Well you still have some friends right?”

“Besides Elliot, not really. Makoa and Path are the only ones that treat me like a friend out of the others, but that’s because they treat everyone like that.” Renee couldn’t help but feel sad, this is really what her life was like.

“Well if you ever want to do anything, feel free to message me, I’d be more than happy to go somewhere with you.”

“Thanks.” Renee was now back to smiling.

Renee felt a buzz from her phone, and noticed that Natalie looked down like she had gotten a message on her phone too.

“Well, it sounds like Monday's game information is out.” Renee sighed and looked at her phone.

Monday was the first game of each week, and it always had special rules. To make things more interesting, contenders were told what the rules would be, and what their teams would be, so they could practice for the day. Any other day of the week, no one had any clue if any special rules would be in play or who their teammates would be until right before the dropship opened up.

She heard a small squeal from Natalie across the table, as she kept scrolling to read the information. The rule was that the teams would consist of two legends, rather than the normal three and the game would take place in King’s Canyon. She began looking through the contenders and found her name, she was matched with…

...Natalie.

She looked up at the woman across the table from her, to see she had been waiting for Renee to see the team.

“This is going to be our first time on the same team! We’ve got to win this!” Natalie could barely contain her excitement, which got a chuckle from Renee.

* * *

Renee was just helping Natalie clean and put away the dishes they used when there was a knock at the door.

“I’ll be back in a moment.” Natalie said to Renee before waking off to the door.

Renee felt a shiver down her spine as she heard the voice of the visitor, “hello Miss Paquette, sorry to bother you so late, but would you happen to have an extra flashlight? One of my experiments has put a couple of mine out of use for the time being, and I need one as soon as possible.”

“Wait here one moment Doctor Nox, I’ll go get it.”

Natalie disappeared back into the hallway, and Renee froze as she heard Nox’s heavy footsteps approaching, he definitely wasn’t waiting there like Natalie had said.

* * *

Natalie had sent Nox on his way when she had called out “Wraith? Where are you?” The raven haired woman had disappeared.

Renee revealed herself from the same hallway that Natalie had gone down earlier.

“How did you get down there?”

“I phased,” Renee pointed at her void panel.

“Yeah, maybe that was for the better, I don’t know what would have happened if Doctor Nox had seen you here. I’m guessing he’s not too fond of you?”

Renee shook her head.

“Well, then that was some good thinking.” Natalie sighed, Renee could tell she was tired.

“Well I guess I better get going. Are you up for some more training tomorrow now that we know we’re on a team?”

“Oh, definitely!” Natalie managed a smile in her tired state.

“Good night.” Renee waved to Natalie

“Good night, mon amie.” Natalie watched as Renee closed the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel a lot more proud of this chapter than the last, and just kept adding in as I went, hence why this chapter is around 5,000 words. I might go back and add some smaller things to chapter 1, but for now I'm trying to plan out the next chapter.
> 
> :)


	3. Trust

Renee had arrived early for the dropship, an hour early. Some of the contenders that would be in the games today were already here, but the only one she recognized was Ajay.

She took in the time to take a whiff of the air. It was cool, and smelled rather pleasant. This was the last time she’d smell something like that for hours. No matter if she woke up in the recovery bay, or won the games she would be smelling the blood and sweat the legends had to get used to experiencing in the games.

Finding a chair in a side room of the waiting area she sat down. She felt the slightest bit of tiredness but shrugged it off, she was used to such things. Last night the humming of her voices that normally kept her up had returned, although they were more tolerable than normal. After two nights of silence from them it was frustrating for them to be back, but Renee had learned to live with the inconvenience. She never knew what they were saying, maybe they were trying to communicate with her, or maybe it was just some sort of background noise of the void that she only heard when falling asleep. Either way, it kept her up for hours at a time.

She tried to think of anything to take her mind off of her boredom. The first thing that came to mind was yesterday’s training with Natalie. The two of them had stuck to combat practices that day, more of reacting to oncoming ordinances and just a few more teamwork oriented strategies. The two women had ended the session with some hand to hand combat. Natalie had asked her to not hold back, and even though she wanted to, Renee obliged. Natalie lost each round they attempted and Renee had to help her up after she fell to the ground each time, but the blonde would never give up. While she wasn’t the best at it, Natalie actually landed a few blows on Renee, one of them almost knocked her over. The two had both called it a day after about two hours training and went home, which left Renee with nothing to do but ice a spot where Natalie had dealt a strong blow to her rib cage.

‘ _Behind you, move_.’ Even though she was deep in her thoughts, she reacted almost instantly to her voices, jumping up and turning around to meet whatever was behind her. A large, gloved hand barely missed its target. Whether it was aimed to grab her shoulder or the back of her shirt, she had no doubt of its ill intentions.

It was Nox. There was a slight change in his expression, only for a moment though, but Renee caught it. It looked like her quick dodge had caught him off guard, to the point where he couldn’t hide it for a split second. It didn’t stop him though, as he returned his hand to his side as he glared at her.

“Miss Paquette and I were working on some new technology last night when she had to leave early due to being sore from multiple bruises on her. I’ve put up with her working with someone like you since it was making her happy, but this crosses the line. If I see you anywhere near her, you will surely-“

“Doctor Nox leave her alone!” Natalie called from behind.

“There is no reason for you to have been hurt like that, especially when it might affect your ability to finish our current project.” Nox was still glaring at Renee, not bothering to turn to look at Natalie as he talked. “You’re usually not one to show up this early Miss Paquette.”

“I’m glad I did, you don’t have to control everything for me. I’ve been training with her for a reason!” Nox finally turned to face Natalie, Renee let out an inaudible sigh of relief as he did.

“Then prove that your decision has been worth it Miss Paquette. Win the game.” Nox was already walking off.

“Hey! You know that’s not fair.” Natalie turned to Renee, her cheeks red with anger. “Ce n'est pas mon parent!” Renee found Natalie’s angry French… cute. She quickly looked away, trying to clear her head of thoughts like that.

“Sorry about Doctor Nox, he acts like he’s my guardian when he isn’t.” Natalie pouted. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“I’m fine.” Renee sat back down in the chair.

“We’ll win this, we’ve been practicing for it.” She paused for a moment, “maybe I should just train with you from now on, so I don’t have to deal with his grumpiness. If that’s ok with you that is!” Natalie looked flustered from adding that last part.

Renee didn’t have much else to do, and besides, she would never admit it, but she was starting to like training with the engineer. She just nodded, causing Natalie’s normal smile to return. Renee leaned her head back, closing her eyes a moment to think about what the plan for today’s game would be.

She was quickly interrupted when Natalie, who had sat down beside her asked, “I don’t annoy you, do I?”

Even though she kept her eyes closed, Renee responded. “No, what makes you say that?”

“Well, whenever we train together I always talk to you about things and you barely say much. I’m just worried that you don’t like working with me.”

“I’m just used to saying very little.” Renee had now turned to face the blonde. “Besides, I’m willing to hear whatever stories you want to tell, or whatever feelings you want to get out.” She paused for a moment recalling some of the things she heard from Natalie from the last two days of training, “You don’t really get to do that very often, do you?”

Natalie just shook her head, her smile had turned into a frown and she hung her head low. “Sometimes, but not any of the deeper things that I would really just want to have someone listen about, they just try to stop me from talking and change the conversation to try to take my mind off it. I get that they are trying to protect me, but sometimes I just want to let it out.” She turned to Renee, “but you are the only one that listens.” The engineer broke eye contact, and pulled up her hood. “I just miss Papa.”

Renee wanted to comfort her, but she didn’t know how. She had never comforted someone or been comforted by someone. There was one thing she could think of doing, so she lightly put her hand on Natalie’s shoulder, ready to quickly pull it away at any moment if there was any sign of discomfort from the other woman. That didn’t happen though, instead Natalie’s shoulder relaxed, as the engineer seemed to enjoy the comfort.

Renee wanted to protect the engineer, just like the others, but she wanted to help her with her emotions, in a way that the others tried to help her avoid them. Renee knew that Natalie had been close with her father, but just trying to forget about it like the other legends were trying to help her do was something Renee didn’t think would work. She would help Natalie, especially if it was just by listening to whatever she had to say, it would be worth it to help her fully move on.

Renee felt a sudden pressure of her side, Natalie had leaned over. She tensed up. Too close. Her body screamed for her to move, but before she could Natalie spoke up.

“Thank you for being the one to listen.” Natalie said in a weak whisper. Was she crying?

Renee suddenly couldn’t get herself to move away. How could she do it right now? She sat there for a moment, unsure of what to do. They were in a secluded room of the lounge, but she still looked around to make sure no one could see them. She slowly relaxed her muscles as she continued to let Natalie lean over on her. Slowly raising her hand, she inched it over to Natalie’s other shoulder, not quite sure if she should do it, but she eventually rested her arm around Natalie’s back.

They sat there like that for a few minutes, neither moving, with the occasional soft sob coming from the engineer, causing Renee to tense up each time. Natalie eventually leaned up, and Renee removed her arm from Natalie’s shoulder. With her jacket sleeves, she wiped away the tears then turned to Renee and gave her a nod. “Let’s win this.”

* * *

The voidwalker gripped her side and winced as she fell to the ground. She no longer had the strength to stand and tried to crawl around the corner of the bunker.

“Wraith, I’m on my way!” Natalie had opened the large blast door right behind the raven haired woman, and proceeded to place some electric fences blocking the enemy from proceeding. She then turned to face her downed teammate, rubbing her hands together while inducing an electric charge into them. She placed her hands on the chest of her teammate before releasing the shock into Renee.

It was a different feeling, somewhat like crossing one of Natalie’s fences, but instead of causing muscle spasms, it gave Renee just enough of a boost to be able to stand again.

‘Danger, grenade.’ The voidwalker didn’t get a chance to collect herself as a gas grenade landed right between the two. Renee instinctively phased herself into the void and ran out the door, hoping that Natalie would be able to get herself out.

Renee sat herself up against a wall on the outside of the bunker. Covered in blood and exhausted, she sat down to catch her breath. Natalie could be heard walking out of the doorway in a coughing fit as she had inhaled a good amount of the gas. She looked over at the engineer who had managed to position her fences covering the door in between gasps for air.

“Wattson, you ok?” Renee saw the blonde nod in response, she was still coughing up the last of the gas that was in her lungs.

“Nice-“ she paused to gasp for air, “nice reaction there, I don’t think I could have got you back up a second time.”

Renee weakly nodded. They knew they were most likely not going to make it. They had nothing left from the bloodbath of the early part of the match. Almost all of their supplies were drained as they had exhausted all of them fighting what seemed like everyone in the match. At some point they both had just stopped counting how many they had killed and how many rounds they had fired, as they never had a moment to rest before another team would show up, trying to eliminate whoever had won the previous fight. Lucky for them none of the top legends had found them in this way, so they had managed to take care of each team that had faced them.

Now there were only three teams left, and with one of the two other duos already on the two of them, they were at a severe disadvantage. Renee felt the familiar static of a shield recharging as she looked to her side, Natalie joined her and had put down a pylon. She was just glad that her energy shield would be able to block some bullets once again, because she would not be able to take any more wounds. She needed some sort of medical aide, but neither had any. Renee’s push around the corner had backfired and had put them in this situation, she didn’t even get to see who the other person was before she had been met with a strong stream of bullets.

“It’s Nox and someone I couldn’t identify, possibly a qualifier, all I know is they have a devotion.”

“I can see why they damaged you so fast.” Natalie was looking around, most likely for anything they could use. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s head towards containment, maybe that building up there might have something.” She pointed up the hill next to them, it would have a good vantage point toward containment, and the bunker entrance behind them. “I’ll meet you there.”

Renee nodded and began the walk up the hill. She couldn’t go as fast as she would have liked, but she still made it. She trusted Natalie and whatever plan she had in mind.

She got up to the top and sat herself down at a nearby wall to catch her breath. In her weakened state she would be an easy target, especially because her shield had been barely charged by the pylon. Even worse, the place had been ransacked already. She grunted as she picked herself up to take a quick look around to see if anything was left. There was one unopened crate, she hoped that there would be something in there.

A mozambique, a basic knockdown shield, and…

...a Phoenix kit.

She muttered something under her breath, she didn’t even know what she said, as she was too desperate to even care. She immediately began twisting the top when she heard Natalie behind her.

“I got you some bandages, I know it’s not much, bu-“ the engineer looked at Renee who was already in the process of using the kit. “That works too, probably a better choice.”

Renee let out a sigh of relief as the wave of regeneration flowed through her body, she could no longer feel pain in the places she was wounded and her shield was fully active, a purple glow ran across her for a moment signifying it was recharged.

The voidwalker looked to Natalie. “Where did you go?” Before the engineer could answer gunshots rung in the distance, although they were coming from a house down near the bunker entrance.

“Let’s just say, they will be surprised that we aren’t actually hiding in there.” 

Renee was a bit amazed, Natalie had gone off and made a fake hiding place. She could see the light from the wires down in one of the windows of the house.

“Come on, let's go before they notice I tricked them!” Natalie was already running ahead which put the slightest smile on Renee’s face, which she covered up with her scarf so that none of the cameras in the arena would be able to see it.

* * *

Gathering whatever they could on the way, the two of them had made a makeshift bunker in one of the buildings of the slum lakes. The ring now enclosed the town, and the three squads that were still alive.

Renee was on high alert as she heard footsteps nearby. A few shots were heard breaking one of Natalie’s fences then a competitor boldly leapt through the window. It was the one with the devotion, which he immediately began firing at the two of them. While it was an extremely dangerous play, it may have worked for him if Natalie had not had a peacekeeper, which she quickly fired two rounds into him, the power of the shotgun blast knocking him backwards to the ground. It looked like he hit his head pretty hard.

Even with the fancy outfit that the legend was wearing, she remembered his face, the one that had challenged her to a fight a few days ago. She had no idea what he had been expecting to fight someone as high ranking as her, but it seems his lack of thinking was still the same.

“I have an idea, get ready to shoot.” Natalie nodded as Renee began creating a portal.

The moment she opened the door she phased, she only had a few seconds to locate Nox before she would be exposed, luckily he was hiding right on the outside wall. It felt like déjà vu, she pulled almost the exact same maneuver on the scientist that she had done to Natalie in the last game, appearing before him to shove him in the portal, closing it after so he couldn’t make it back outside.

She heard the sound of the peacekeeper firing as Nox went down quickly. Normally if an entire team was weakened to the point where they could no longer fight, the special gear that all legends had to wear would flood the contenders with chemicals that would render them unconscious. Nox and his teammate were still awake though, which could only mean one thing, one of them had a rare self revival kit.

“Doctor Caustic has the shield, his teammate was scared enough to already show his.” Renee heard Natalie throughout the comms, and went to join her.

Natalie was crouching down, looking at the Doctor. “I’m sorry Doctor Caustic, but we are going to win this, and I won’t let you stop us. She began rubbing her hands together for a large shock, and right before enough voltage was sent through the scientist to eliminate him, he looked over to glare at Renee.

The two contenders were replaced with deathboxes, and the two women began to stock up on supplies.

“Alright one other squad, we can win this!”

The two of them had their guns drawn, ready to fire at anyone if they pushed through into the building. Every second passing felt like an hour as nothing but the hum of the ring and electric fencing could be heard. The feeling was tense, both of them were waiting for something to happen.

Natalie jumped out of fear when the arena speakers boomed. “We have our apex champions.”

The two of them looked at each other, both a bit confused.

“Was there really another squad?” Natalie spoke up first.

Rene just shrugged, hopefully the recording of the game would clear it up.

* * *

Once the dropship had brought them back to the waiting lounge, the two of them immediately went to watch the replay of the final fight. Everything was normal at first, they saw their firefight with Nox and his teammate and their looting, then the feed cut to Octane.

Natalie was laughing to the point of tears. Renee almost couldn’t hold in her urge to laugh, but managed to keep it down.

He had jumped off his jump pad, hit the edge of a building’s roof, knocking a leg off in the process, before sliding across the ground right into the ring, where he couldn’t get himself up in time. His teammate, Lifeline had been eliminated early into the game so that was it.

“Sometimes I don’t know how Silva has gotten as far as he has.” Ajay had been waiting for them it seemed.

“What are you doing here?” Natalie turned to the unexpected visitor.

“I came to congratulate ya. This is your first win after all.”

“Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without Wraith.”

“Anita told me she was training ya, seems to have paid off.” Natalie nodded in response, a huge smile on her face.

“Well, I’m off to remind Silva to not leave me for dead when he’s the fastest one here.” The combat medic waved her hand as she exited the lounge.

Renee felt a tug on her sleeve.

“Thanks for working with me for the past couple days, I wouldn’t have won without you.”

Renee just nodded giving Natalie a little smile. She was about to leave to go home when the blonde spoke up again.

“Hey, umm… since this is my first win I wanted to celebrate, but with Elliot’s bar closed I was just going to do it at home, and well… a celebration isn’t that exciting with one person, and tha-“ she paused to for a moment, probably to calm the nervousness she was poorly hiding, “what I’m saying is would you like to join me to celebrate? I’ve been keeping a bottle of wine for a special occasion, and I thought tonight would be worth it.”

Oh god. No. Too much had happened today with Natalie, she just needed to clear her thoughts. She had to make some sort of excuse. She couldn’t think of anything specific so she had to cover with some sort of basic excuse.

“I’m sorry, but that won’t work for me tonight.”

Natalie’s expression quickly changed to one of sadness. It bothered Renee a bit to see her like that, but she needed a bit of room. She just hoped that she wouldn’t hurt Natalie too much.

She waved goodbye and walked out, glad that the engineer didn’t say anything to try to get her to stay.

* * *

Renee had sat herself down on the couch, watching the full recap of the day’s game. It wasn't very interesting to her, but it was better than staring at the wall. She just wanted some sort of background noise.

She had to stop letting Natalie chip away at her cold facade. She wasn’t comfortable with emotions, and she just wasn’t used to people being kind to her. The effect of the experiments would always be with her, and the way that they changed her would be too.

But at the same time, she couldn’t keep herself away from the blonde. Her optimistic personality was something Renee wished she could have. To forget all of her problems, her past, and what was done to her to just wake up each day with a smile on her face.

And just like that, she had turned Natalie away. She still needed to deal with the death of her father. Even with her constant smile, Renee knew Natalie was still bothered by it. 

The more she thought about it, the more something bothered Renee. Her time as a test subject, some sort of experiment, was something she had just tried to run from, hiding under this fake personality that had become what her actual personality was. She was no longer the Renee Blasey from before, that woman was gone, and she doubted she’d ever find who she really was. What was now left was a different Renee. Maybe Natalie wasn’t the only one that still needed healing. She was the only person that trusted or even seemed to care about Renee besides Elliot, and there was no way she would open up with him. She was starting to hate what she had become. This persona built on as little emotion as possible was starting to feel tiring for Renee. She just didn’t know if she was ready for a change like that… but if she would be able to, her only chance would be with help from Natalie. She’d have to be outside of her comfort zone for that, but maybe she could slowly begin opening up more. The engineer was already beginning to cause Renee to open up slightly, she would just have to stop resisting it as much.

There was a knock at the door.

Renee grabbed her kunai and slowly made her way to the door. She was not ready to trust anyone showing up at her door at 10:00. She cracked it open slowly, peeking out of the slight gap. She caught a slight glimpse of short blonde hair. If there was a reason that Natalie had shown up this late, there was no point to turning her away. She opened the door the rest of the way to greet the woman at her door.

“Hey.” Natalie waved to her. She was fidgeting slightly, as she made a glance behind her as if something was following her. Renee could tell that she was nervous about something.

“Before you say anything, come inside, it’s cold out there.” She made up the excuse to get Natalie inside without cuing the engineer in that she could see her nervousness.

There was a thankful look on Natalie’s face as she walked inside. Renee was a little embarrassed, as this was the first time Natalie would be seeing her home, and the dark, empty look it had.

“Natalie, why are you here so late?”

“I uhh… just wanted to make sure I didn’t make you uncomfortable before the match this morning.”

Renee shook her head, “You’re fine Natalie.” The other woman smiled at Renee, but she could tell it was a fake one.

“That isn’t the only reason you’re here, is there something else you wanted to ask me?”

Natalie dropped her fake smile and hung her head, “Oui.” She grabbed her shoulder with her right arm, “I wanted to ask you if you knew where Ajay went.”

“She doesn’t really tell me things like this, but my best guess would be an overnight trip somewhere to get medical supplies, she does those pretty often. She’ll be back in the morning if you need her.” Then a question entered Renee’s mind, so she decided to ask it, “why didn’t you go to ask anyone else that knows her better than me?”

The engineer sighed, she was shaking slightly. “Your house is the furthest away from Doctor Nox’s, and the last place he would expect me to be.”

“What happened?” Renee was a little worried now that she was hearing this.

“We got in a fight, and I just needed some space. I was going to ask Ajay if I could stay the night with her since she said I could always come by if I needed anything, but she wasn’t home.”

Renee raised her eyebrow. Natalie finally raised her head to look at the voidwalker, there was a hurt look in them.

“I didn’t want to deal with Doctor Nox anymore tonight, and since he has a spare key to my house I didn’t want to risk him trying to talk with me there.” Natalie paused, before making her way to the door. “Well, thanks for the information, I should get going.”

“Where are you going now?” Renee was hoping Natalie had some sort of idea.

“Umm… I’m not quite sure. I’ll figure it out I guess.”

Renee knew Natalie most likely wouldn’t be comfortable asking anyone else if she could stay the night, especially since some of them might already be asleep by this point. Besides, if she really wanted space from Nox, this would be the last place he would check. Natalie had already begun walking out the door when Renee called to her, “wait!”

She had never done this before, but Natalie was the one person she trusted not to stab her while she was asleep.

“Just stay the night here Natalie.” Renee motioned for the blonde to come inside, and after taking a quick glance around she quickly made her way inside.

“You sure you’re fine with this?” Natalie looked Renee in the eyes.

“It’s fine, you’re right that this would be the last place Nox would look, so this is probably for the better.”

Renee turned off the recap of the game, and went back to her room, pulling a blanket and spare pillow out of the closet.

“I don’t really have anywhere better, so you’ll have to sleep on the couch.” She put a pillowcase on the pillow then dropped it and the blanket on the couch.

Natalie was already making herself comfortable there, she was definitely as tired as Renee was. The voidwalker began walking towards the hallway when she stopped to turn out the light in the living room.

“Thank you,” Natalie said tiredly.

Renee just nodded her head and closed the door of her room to get herself ready for bed.

Lying under her covers she began to give into sleep. She would never admit it, but as she did, she couldn’t stop thinking about Natalie. So many thoughts and feelings would soon be drowned out by the void’s voices. The voices did come, but something was different about them. Instead of a mess of sounds that she couldn’t pick out, there was a sort of calming feeling caused by whatever she was hearing. She was too tired to be able to make out anything, and she quickly fell asleep.


	4. New Feelings

Two weeks passed without much happening. Natalie headed home early on Tuesday so that she could get ready for the day’s game. It seemed Nox never found out where Natalie was that night as he didn’t confront Renee about it, although it did seem like Natalie had made up with the scientist.

In terms of game performance, Renee managed to win another game in the two weeks. It wasn’t a game that she had expected to win since she was placed with a lower contender and it was another duo round. Her teammate did seem like he knew what he was doing, his aim was good and he carried a surveillance drone with him. This wasn’t the first time she had seen that drone flying about the arena, but it was the first time she had seen him in action. Going by the name of Crypto, the hacker had managed to keep up with her during the round, but that would probably be the last she saw of him for a while.

Elliot had returned on Monday of the second week, it seemed his trip was successful.

Renee of course did some occasional training with Natalie during the weeks, mostly on the weekend. She was noticing a difference in the woman each time. The engineer was talking to Renee less and less about things she just wanted to get out and memories with her father, and more on current things. Natalie seemed happier each day that they trained and it seemed she was beginning to finally move on from her father’s death.

Things were changing each time for Renee too. She was feeling more comfortable around the engineer, but there was also some sort of nervous feeling at times that she couldn’t quite describe. She had never felt anything like it, and just tried to ignore it, but admittedly she couldn't really handle it, instead trying to get out of the training center and back home as quickly as possible when the two finished their training each day.

* * *

Renee made her way down the street. It was cold out, very cold. Almost like the cold she felt when traveling through the void, although the frigid winds didn’t cut as deep as it did.

She was on her way to Elliot’s bar. Instead of meeting up on Friday like the legends normally did, Elliot had said to come over on Saturday night where he would be giving out free drinks to all of them, not just the weekly winners. It gave Renee something to do, so of course she was going.

As she got to the door she could already hear faint music from the inside as well as a couple voices talking.

As she walked inside she was greeted by a familiar voice “Hey Wraith.” Natalie waved to her when she saw Renee enter the bar.

“Hey Wraith! I haven’t seen you in what feels like a week. Oh wait.” Elliot smiled at the voidwalker.

“Witt, that joke’s as funny as the first time you said it. I don’t think we need to hear it each time someone shows up.” Anita crossed her arms at the table she was at.

Renee just shook her head, Elliot hadn’t changed one bit in the week he was gone.

She watched as he motioned her over to the bar area and poured her a drink. She walked over to the bar and away from the group that was at the table.

“So, has anything interesting happened while I was gone?” He said as he handed her the glass.

“Elliot, I know you’ve already asked that to someone here.”

“I meant like, have you done anything exciting? Anything new?”

“You know I don’t do much.”

“You must have done something since I wasn’t here to entertain you.”

Renee pinched her nose, “I almost wish you stayed away.”

“Hey! I’m the life of the party around here, I couldn’t stay away.” He winked at Renee.

“I’ll take another refill Elliot.” Natalie had walked up to the bar and sat beside Renee.

“Sure thing.”

“So Wraith, what do you think they are going to show off at the meeting?”

“I’m not quite sure, maybe some sort of slight mix up for the games.”

Normally there was a monthly meet up where the best performing legends would go and give signatures to fans, and answer some of their questions. Every once in a while the meeting would become a news ceremony where those running the games would make announcements for some changes. Renee usually never cared, nor did she pay attention. She just tuned out everything except important changes. She decided it would just be easier to return the question to Natalie.

“What are you hoping for?” Renee looked at the blonde.

“Something exciting, I could use a change.”

Elliot handed Natalie her drink and joined in on the conversation, “so are you bored of the arena?”

“Hmm? Oh, no I just like little changes, it might be fun to see some.” She paused to drink, “but, if anything is changed that I’m having trouble with I’ll have someone to help me figure it out.” She turned and smiled at Renee.

“Wait! Are you two friends?” Elliot put his hands down on the bar, quickly looking back and forth between the two.

“Oui.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure you are the same Wraith that was here before I left?”

“Oh my god Elliot.” Renee put her hand on her forehead.

Natalie laughed, “Is that a surprise to you?”

“Well yeah, I thought she wasn’t one for making friends.”

“Well I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” Renee looked back at him smugly.

“I mean, now you’ll have someone else to punch when they make jokes about you.”

If the bar counter wasn’t between the two of them she would have done exactly that.

“Elliot!” Someone from the main group yelled over.

“Better go see what they want.” He winked at the two of them as he went to the others

The two women sat quietly for a few moments before the silence was broken.

“I’m glad I have a friend like you.” Natalie smiled at Renee, causing the voidwalker to raise her eyebrow.

“What’s that look for? You’ve helped me so much the past couple weeks, and all of the training sessions we’ve had have been helping me improve.” Natalie giggled, “who else would listen to me talk about my pylons?”

That got a small smile from Renee, she remembered that training session, Natalie wouldn’t stop talking about her pylon and fences. She didn’t exactly understand everything that the engineer had been talking about, but she just liked to hear Natalie excitedly rambling like that.

“At least when you talk it's something nice, unlike a certain someone.” Renee glanced towards where Elliot had gone.

Natalie laughed at that, “Come on, let’s go join the group.”

Renee nodded, the two women got up and headed over to the main table.

* * *

Eventually, almost everyone was getting a little drunk. Jokes were being exchanged and stories were being told. Renee had to admit, this was the best time she had ever had at one of the gatherings at the bar.

“Alright who’s ready to have a little fun?” Elliot got the attention of the group.

He had carted out a screen, speakers, and… a microphone.

“I think it’s time for some drunk Karaoke!”

At this point Renee had stopped getting drink refills, but she had still had enough to not really remember what was sung, there were a few memories that stuck out though.

Octavio had somehow gotten Ajay to do a duet with him, it was an interesting combination of voices to say the least.

One of the songs Elliot did was a song with a single lyric in it.

The group somehow got Anita to do one, usually this wouldn’t be her type of thing.

Then, Natalie took a turn. Renee was tuning out the lyrics, but she couldn’t stop staring at the blonde. She was really getting into the song, and Renee just kept smiling at the sight. The way that she danced along with the music, the pleasantness of her voice, she looked beautiful and…

...oh god. Was Renee falling in love with her? No. It had to be just her drunken thoughts speaking for themselves. But no, it couldn’t be that. This would explain why she was spending all this time with Natalie, why she felt so comfortable around her, and why she was beginning to feel a nervousness around her as well. Renee wasn’t used to emotions like this, her head felt like it was spinning. She needed to get outside, get some fresh air.

She sat there on a bench for a few minutes, just looking up at the stars. There was no way Natalie would ever feel the same as she did. She’d just have to pretend everything was normal when around Natalie, as she was still the engineer’s friend. She sighed, she definitely wasn’t expecting to come to terms with some feelings like that tonight. 

She heard footsteps approaching from around the corner. She hoped that it would just be one of the legends going home for the night, and that they wouldn’t say a thing to her. Of course it wasn’t. It was Natalie.

“What are you doing out here?” She tried to cover her embarrassment by asking the blonde a question.

“I needed to get out.” Natalie sat down on the bench with her.

“I thought you were having fun in there.”

“Well, I was. They turned up the music though and everyone’s getting louder because of it. I just can’t do loud noises.”

“So are you heading home?”

“Yeah I may as well before Elliot passes out another round of drinks. Want to walk home with me?”

Renee was already hiding a slight blush under her scarf. She considered just walking home alone, but she wanted to make sure Natalie got back safely since she was still a bit drunk. “Sure.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

There was mainly silence on the way back, just the two of them walking, with the occasional moment where Natalie had to lean on to Renee since she almost lost her balance. 

There was suddenly a thud and a yelp of pain. Renee looked over and Natalie had fallen.

“Hey Nat are you ok?” Renee had to stop herself from cringing, did she really just use a nickname like that?

“Non.” It seemed Natalie hadn’t noticed the nickname, but Renee could tell she was in pain.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” She dropped to her knees to make sure the blonde was okay.

She only got a cry of pain in response as Natalie gripped her side.

“Natalie, you have to move your arm so I can see what’s wrong.”

Natalie moved her arm away and Renee’s stomach dropped. There was a large gash in the blonde’s side, and she was gushing blood. She must have landed on some sharp rock.

“Shit.” Renee was beginning to panic, this definitely wasn’t good. “Hey, I’m going to pick you up and carry you the rest of the way home ok?”

Natalie nodded, and Renee picked her up, holding her bridal style.

* * *

Once inside, Renee quickly found some bandaging, and wrapped it around the blonde’s abdomen. Natalie hadn’t said anything as she had her teeth clenched, Renee hoped the pain wasn’t that bad.

She had already called Ajay, who had told her she would get her supplies then head over.

It was only a few minutes before there was a knock at the door, but it had felt like hours.

The two women quickly worked to make a table that Natalie could be examined on, moving the dining table over and putting some towels on it.

Renee set Natalie down on the table, and Ajay asked her to leave the room. Renee didn’t want to, but knew it would be better to let the medic focus.

The voidwalker was just glad that she had chosen to go with Natalie, who knows what would have happened if the blonde had fallen with no one nearby.

She was deep in her thoughts when Ajay called her in.

“Natalie wants to speak to ya.”

She made her way towards the table, which Natalie was sitting on. Her shirt was completely removed, and new bandaging had been wrapped around the wound.

“Thanks for saving me there.”

Renee turned to the medic, who responded “the damage coulda been a lot worse if nothin’ was done about it. Natalie’ll be perfectly fine since ya get help so quickly.”

She let out a sigh of relief, at least Natalie was fine.

“It’ll hurt for a day or two but she’ll be back to normal soon with the type of medicine I gave her. I just need to get her this extra medication in an hour.”

Renee nodded her head, she just wanted to make sure that Natalie would feel comfortable tonight. “Ajay, I know it’s late, so if you want to go home I’ll watch her.”

“Oh, that would be nice. I think I’ll take ya up on that offa.” She started packing up, “remember she should be trying to get some rest as soon as possible, and give her this injection in an hour.” Ajay handed the syringe to Renee.

She opened the door for Ajay and on the way out the medic turned to face her. “I don’t know why ya seem to have become good friends with Natalie, but it's nice to see ya like this.”

Renee smiled and closed the door after she left. She made her way back to the table and helped Natalie down. She had to hold onto Renee the whole way to the bedroom. Renee helped her into bed then softly said, “do you need anything?”

Natalie nodded, “water.”

Renee fetched a cup of water and held it to the blonde’s lips so she could drink.

“You know, you called me Nat earlier.” Renee froze, Natalie had actually heard that. “I kinda like it.” The blonde gave a weak smile to Renee, who knew she was being sincere.

“Well then, I guess I’ll call you Nat now.” Renee smiled back at Natalie who laughed a bit at the saying.

Natalie almost fell asleep multiple times, but Renee had to keep her until she could get the injection. She administered it an hour after, like Ajay had said then got up to leave the room. “If that’s fine with you, I’ll stay here tonight, if you wake up at all feel free to call for me.”

Natalie hummed in her tired state, “thank you Wraith.”

Renee flipped the light switch and was leaving when she heard, “wait.”

“Something wrong?”

“It’s just that I… I umm… I always call you Wraith, but… why have you never told anyone your real name?”

Renee sighed. “I just wasn’t sure that I could call myself by my old name since that person is gone.”

“Oh… sorry to ask.”

“I think that’s it's time I move past that though.” She turned to look at Natalie, “my real name’s... Renee Blasey.”

“That’s… that’s a beautiful name.”

“Thanks.” Luckily the light was still out, otherwise Natalie would have seen her blush. “Just don’t tell anyone that I told you that, okay?”

“Your secret is safe with me, mon amie.”

She began moving back out of the room, “good night Nat.”

“Good night Renee.”


	5. Remembering the Past

Renee rubbed her eyes as she awoke. She looked around, she was somewhere she couldn't immediately recognize. There was a moment of panic before she remembered she was in Natalie’s home. She sat herself up on the couch that she had slept on, it wasn’t the most comfortable rest she had gotten, but it was worth it to make sure that the blonde would have help if she needed it.

She had awoken a couple times in the night, instinctively reaching for her kunai as she had the overwhelming feeling that something was there. Each time though, the feeling would quickly die down and she would eventually check to make sure Natalie was still asleep before lying herself back down on the couch.

Renee wanted to at least wait until Natalie got up before heading home so that she could see what condition the woman would be in, so she sat around for about an hour, occasionally checking her phone until around 9:00, when there was a knock at the door. She opened it and was met by a large figure on the other side of the door, Nox. He had some sort of container in his hands, but quickly moved it behind his back and his eyebrows lowered to scowl at Renee.

“What are you doing here?” His tone had a lot less hatred in it as it normally would when directed at her, something she was slightly surprised about.

She sighed, “Natalie was injured last night. I stayed to care for her so that Ajay could go home.”

“I am well aware of Miss Paquette’s injury. I ran into Miss Che on the way home last night, and she told me about what happened. Although she left out the fact that someone was staying to watch over Miss Paquette.” His eyebrows remained in their normal scowl, “I’ve been told that if you hadn’t been there, Miss Paquette’s injury may have been much worse, which means she will be able to get back to her engineering work quicker.”

That was… unexpected. Nox seemed to be almost thanking her. Almost. “She’s still asleep, I can get whatever’s in that container to her when she wakes up if you’d like.”

Nox nodded, handing the container over to Renee, “I know Miss Paquette likes these, so I thought I’d bring her some to have while she recovered.” It was a container of cinnamon rolls, she could feel that they were still warm, they must have been home made.

He turned to start walking away, but stopped, “I never really understood Miss Paquette’s fascination with you to the point where she calls you her friend, but I’m still keeping an eye on you.” With that, he continued on his way.

That one of the tamer conversations Renee had ever had with the scientist, she was just glad it didn’t go like their conversations normally went, as she was not up for an argument that early.

After closing the door, she set the container down on the counter. Soon after, a sound came from Natalie’s bedroom, so Renee walked down the hallway and knocked lightly on the door.

“Come in.”

She opened the door, and saw Natalie standing beside the bed. Her short hair was a mess and she was holding a green dinosaur plushie. It seemed Renee had walked in just as Natalie had finished changing, as she was no longer in the clothes from last night, and instead in what seemed to be pajamas with the same green dinosaur on them. Renee just gave the woman a questioning look.

“What? Am I not allowed to be comfortable while I recover?” The blonde giggled, tossing the plush back on the bed. She saw Renee eyeing it, “It’s name is Nessie by the way.”

“Well, I’m so honored to have met Nessie.” Renee said in a sarcastic tone, smirking at Natalie as she did.

“It was nessie-cery that you two met. Get it?” She was already laughing at her own joke. Renee just smiled and rolled her eyes. “Although I expected you would have left by now.”

“Natalie you were hurt pretty bad last night, I’m not going to leave until I know you’re ok.” She paused to look at Natalie who was rubbing her wounded side, “how are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling a lot better, it’s just sore is all.” When there was no response Natalie sighed, “you don’t have to worry about me so much Wraith… or, uhh… Renee.”

“Nat, if you’re more used to calling me Wraith then that’s fine.”

“Non! I just am still getting used to the fact that I know your name is all.” She gave a quizzical look to Renee, “does anyone else know your name?”

“No.”

“Really? Not even Elliot.”

“Listen, I don’t know if I’m ready for just anyone to know, and Elliot is probably the worst person at keeping tong term secrets. A week or two? Maybe. But anything more than a month and he will have spilled the secret somewhere.”

“So you trust me enough?”

“Nat you’re probably the only person here I’d trust with anything.”

“Oh,” her voice became a lot softer, “thank you Renee. I’m… I’m glad I have a friend like you.” She tilted her head and gave a full smile to the woman

Fuck. Why did Natalie have to be so adorable like that? She really hoped the blonde didn’t notice her blush. She turned out into the hallway to collect herself for a moment then called through the doorway, “Well I guess I better get going, Nox brought you cinnamon rolls this morning, I took them in for him and left them on the counter.”

As she was walking down the hallway a hand grabbed her shoulder, it took all of her effort not to jump at the touch.

“Please don’t go yet. I know well enough that I won’t be able to do much today while I’m still recovering so it would be nice to have someone to talk to. If you’re not busy that is.”

“Nat I better get home and have some breakfast.”

“Oh come on! I’ll share my cinnamon rolls!”

She got Renee there, when Nox had given her the container he had quickly opened it, probably to make sure that they were still there, but she had gotten a whiff of them and they smelled really good. This would be a lot better than whatever cereal she had at home.

She sighed, “fine.”

Natalie clapped her hands together excitedly, “thank you.”

* * *

Renee spent a good amount of the day with Natalie, it was mostly just the blonde talking to her and Renee just giving one word responses every now and then. She just enjoyed spending time with the engineer though.

She still had to help Natalie a few times throughout the day when she was too sore to do something or when she needed to hold onto Renee to rest for a moment.

She ended up staying quite late, and was eventually told that Nox would be joining Natalie for dinner, and the engineer ended up inviting her to join too. She didn’t want to leave just because the scientist would be there, especially because since he was basically family to Natalie, she would probably have to get used to seeing him more with the amount of time she was starting to spend with the blonde.

When Nox arrived, Renee was sitting on the couch on her phone. Besides a quick nod at each other neither said anything. She could hear Natalie whisper to the scientist “please be nice to her.” Renee guessed that she wasn’t supposed to hear that, but the blonde didn’t say it quietly enough. She just rolled her eyes at the thought, she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, she didn’t fear Nox. Although… it was nice for Natalie to ask him to not be aggressive. Renee just hoped the evening would go as smoothly as her meeting with Nox earlier in the day.

“Hey uhh…” Natalie paused for a moment, “Wraith can you come help me?” She remembered to hide the name.

“Sure.”

“Can you just stir the broth a bit?” Natalie dumped some vegetables into the pot before disappearing back into the restroom. She had chosen just some basic soup to make for that night, so there wasn’t long before it would be ready.

As Renee was stirring she heard a voice speak up from the side of the kitchen.

“What do you want from Miss Paquette?”

Renee just glanced to the side, choosing not to respond.

“With the amount of time you spend with her, you have to be in it for something. You’re not the friendly type, so what is it? Hope that she’ll give you information about changes in the arena before they happen? For her to work on your technology to give the better edge? Tell me, why do you do it?” This was already not going well, Nox was back to his normal self.

“If you know me so well you should know that I don’t trust many people, you’re at the very top of that list. Natalie is someone I can trust, so I have no problem spending time with her while she recovers. I can see what you mean though, as I wouldn’t expect you to know about kindness like that.” Renee still did not make eye contact with the scientist.

“You better watch yourself, it would be a pleasure to dissect your dead body to see what they did to you in that lab.”

Renee froze. No one was supposed to know about that. How did he know? Her past at the IMC facility was not public information, and the only place where that information could be found was with the syndicate who had forced her to tell of her past when they found her in the arena as it was being built. Ever since then she had done her best to forget about it, the memories of that time always brought back pain and fear.

“You know, after I’ve been doing some research on you, and today a few sources of information finally responded to me. Turns out you used to work for the IMC, as well as being an experiment for them.”

“Shut up.”

“I may have been kind to you this morning, but you are not someone that Miss Paquette or I can trust, and after learning about your connection to the IMC, my perception of you has changed. I bet they enjoyed using you as a lab rat, keeping you locked up for their scientific tests.”

She felt sick, she just wanted to forget about it. The pain and fear from her time there was coming back to her and she felt like she was going to snap.

“Stop talking.”

“I assure you, I will not stop talking, as long as you are around Miss Paquette you are a dangerous influence, I have no idea what your goals are or what you are doing with her, but you better watch yourself when you are around her.” At this point he was staring her right in the eyes, he bent down slightly giving glare of an intensity she had never seen and said a final sentence laced with a venom that she had never heard from anyone, “Miss Blasey.”

Her head was starting to spin, she couldn’t take this. She balled up her fists, she was ready to try to attack the monster of a man in front of her, if she started though she wasn’t quite sure if she’d be able to stop herself from killing him. Her hand twitched as she readied herself to grab her kunai.

There was a slight sound from the side as the two of them broke eye contact to turn and see Natalie standing there. Renee had no idea how long she had been standing there, or how much she had heard. It didn’t matter though, as she felt like an unstable mess and couldn’t stay there any longer.

“I’m sorry, I have to go.” She quickly made her way out the door.

“No, wait!” She heard Natalie call from behind, but she just began moving faster.

* * *

She didn’t stop until she was in a secluded area of a nearby park, somewhere where no one would bother her.

There were too many emotions for her to handle, she was never really good with them, but the intensity she was feeling now was just too much.

She had been robbed of her previous life, given abilities she never asked for, and now Nox had found out about her past as that experiment that she so desperately wanted to forget about. Even worse, he was using it as a weapon against her. Most of the legends know something happened to Renee before she joined the games, but none of them knew exactly what. Now Natalie most likely knew of what really happened. Of course Nox had someone in the syndicate who would be willing to give him information like that. Renee just hoped that Natalie would be understanding. She just wanted someone to talk to about it now that these memories were back, and that would have been with Natalie, but with Nox there she wouldn’t be able to.

She sat down on a nearby grassy hill, pulling her knees to her chest. She just needed to clear her mind. Staring up at the night sky, Renee sat there in total silence.

This was the loneliness that she was used to, nothing to drown out the pain that she felt. She just… couldn’t deal with Nox anymore. What now? Is he going to tell everyone about it? Will she now eternally be reminded of what was done to her?

Renee just wanted to drown out the feelings. So she got up, heading off into the city to find the one place she wanted to be.

* * *

Walking into the Paradise Lounge Renee quickly made her way over to the counter.

Elliot was off serving a customer, but eventually made his way over to where she was.

“So what can I get you tod…ay... Wraith?” He had a surprised look in his face.

“What am I not allowed to show up on days you aren’t inviting us over?” She raised her eyebrow at him.

“Well, uhh. I’m just not used to seeing you here during the hours that we’re open.”

“I just need to drink.”

“Did something happen?”

“Yeah, I just came here to forget about it, ok?”

“Alright, but I’ll have you know that you’ll have to pay for them.”

“Elliot I know that, just get me my usual.”

“Sure thing.”

* * *

She got a few drinks, but she held herself off from having enough to get drunk. People had stopped coming in, so Elliot just stood on the other side of the counter talking to her. They mostly just talked about past games, it was the easiest thing for Renee to think about at the moment.

He eventually had to go back to serving when some more customers walked in, which left the voidwalker to her thoughts. Nox’s words were now starting to sink in. Part of what he said was hurting to realize because it was true. Renee didn’t seem like the most trustable, especially since she was the only top legend that never shared her past or even her name. Had she been making enemies this whole time? Maybe things would just be better off if she could gain the trust of the other legends. Whatever she had done in the past, she was a different Renee and maybe it was time to show that.

“Didn’t expect to see ya here.” Renee turned to the new voice, it was Ajay.

“Yeah…” Renee sighed, the medic was a slight relief to see. Someone who didn’t outright hate her.

“Ya know, when I left home to come here I saw Natalie knockin’ on your door. She’s lookin’ for ya.”

Elliot spoke up from nearby as he got Ajay her drink, “I really hope that you don’t have something going on between you two right now because she texted me to see if I knew where you were.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Well, umm… yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head.

“Is that a bad thing?” Ajay spoke up.

Renee sat for a moment, “I don’t know.” If she was being honest, she wasn’t quite sure if she was ready to talk to Natalie since she would most likely be asking about what she heard but, at the same time, Natalie would probably be the most understanding person to talk to.

“So what are you gonna do?” Elliot was leaning on the bar counter.

“I’ll just wait for her to show up. Elliot, give me the bill and I’ll pay now.”

He nodded as he came back with the bill, which she paid. Renee waited a bit before the door opened and the familiar blonde walked in.

“Hey.” Renee said in a low tone.

Natalie removed her hood and exposed the rest of her hair. “Hey, Re- uhh… Wraith, can we talk in private.”

Elliot chuckled, “hey you’re stuttering like me!”

“I don’t think that’s what’s happenin’ Witt. Natalie do ya got a nickname for her that ya don’t want us to hear?” Ajay teased the engineer.

Natalie gave Renee an apologetic look.

Renee sighed, this would probably be a good time to share her name before Elliot would start pestering her about having a supposed ‘nickname,’ “No she was going to say my name.”

“Your name?” Elliot gave a look of anticipation. She looked over and Ajay had the same facial expression. “Like your actual name?”

Renee nodded.

“So she got to know before me?” Renee glared at Elliot after that comment. He put his hands up defensively, “sorry for asking.”

The voidwalker looked to Natalie “alright.”

She began following the blonde out when Elliot called from behind “wait, are you going to tell us?”

“I’ll be back eventually, if you two are still here by then I’ll tell you.” With that, the two women were out the door.

* * *

Natalie led her to the same bench that she was found at last time, and the two sat down.

“Renee, I’m sorry about what happened with Nox back there. I should have known that something would happen but…” Natalie looked down and rubbed her shoulder, “I just didn’t expect him to do what he did.”

“So you know about my past now.”

Natalie frowned at her, “Renee I don’t care what happened in your past, nothing will change the fact that you’re my friend.” There was a moment of silence before she continued, “my best friend.”

She only gave Natalie a questioning look.

“You’re… you’re basically family to me now… well you and Doctor Nox. He treats me well, but you are the only person that seems to understand me.” She broke eye contact and hung her head. “I just can’t stand that he treats you like that.”

“Nat… I… I’m family to you?”

“Renee, you helped me get past Papa’s death, and…” she turned to face Renee again, “while he isn’t here anymore, I hope I can make him proud wherever he is. Besides, you’ve stuck up for me, so it’s only fair that I stick up for you.”

Renee just raised her eyebrow at the statement.

“I told Doctor Nox to go home after you left. I had asked him to be nice to you, but he didn’t listen.” She pulled her legs up to her chest, “I don’t know why he thought that him telling me about your past would make me want to avoid you, but he insisted I listen to reason… whatever that meant.”

“Nat it’s because you’re nothing like him. You’re funny, and smart and…” she had to stop herself before she said ‘beautiful’ “... my best friend too.”

Natalie smiled at Renee but quickly dropped it, “I… I’m sorry about what happened to you all that time ago. I could never imagine what it was like to go through that.”

“I’ve…” she sighed, “I’ve always tried to forget about it, just pretend it didn’t happen. Now, I just want to talk it out with someone, but I’ve never gotten that chance.”

“Renee, it’s my turn to listen, feel free to tell me whatever you want.”

She smiled at Natalie, and so she began telling Natalie what she could remember.

* * *

She felt a lot better just telling the story to someone else, but Natalie had done a whole lot more. Her past no longer hurt as much to think about. She really did just need someone else to be there for her. Now though, she would have someone to talk to when occasional nightmares from it came back. The two had said goodbye before Natalie gave her a hug, Renee wished it had lasted longer as the warmth from Natalie was so comforting, but the two parted and Renee walked back into the Paradise Lounge.

“So you did decide to come back!” Elliot called to her as she walked it.

The bar was mostly empty now, only Elliot and Ajay were there.

“So what did she want to talk to you about?” Elliot asked, while cleaning a glass.

“None of your business.” Renee sat down, sighing as she did.

“So ya kinda left us with some big news ya know?”

“Yeah, I was convinced your actual name was Wraith and your parents were just bad with names.”

She shook her head, “no, I just haven’t been ready to share it with anybody.”

“Why not, it’s just a name.”

“Elliot, you don’t know what I’ve been through. For the longest time I just wanted to forget part of my past, and that included my name. Things have changed for me recently and I think I’m ready to be Renee again.”

“Renee?” Elliot raised his eyebrow.

She nodded.

“Well Renee, it’s nice to hear that from ya.” Ajay smiled at her. “Ya know, you’ve been different ever since ya met Natalie, we were always worried about you and Nox rubbing off on her, but it seems that the opposite has happened.”

That got a chuckle from Renee, “I’m just glad to have met her.”

Elliot placed down three shot glasses on the counter. “Well I guess this is a big thing to know, so I suggest we each take one last drink.”

He filled each one up, and lifted his glass up in the air. “To Renee.”

“To Renee.” Ajay repeated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, this chapter took a bit of reworking to get to where it is now. I had to change the direction that it was initially going to go in, but I think it turned out well.


	6. Secrets and Victory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say that this is where the fic has a slight branch from the actual apex story, where in the normal Apex universe, no one knows that Nox is Caustic, that... doesn't work here, so I had to improvise in this chapter :)
> 
> Also Crypto's here now.

The next week was a busy one for Renee. Monday started with each of the top legends receiving a letter announcing that a new legend has been accepted into the apex predators, and that they would be moving into one of the empty houses in the housing area. They were to keep this news secret until the meeting at the end of the week.

The surprising part of it was that this new top performing legend was Crypto, the hacker she had met in an earlier match. If they thought he was good enough to be given the prestigious title that she and the other top legends had then she couldn’t argue.

She had more important issues though. She still didn’t want everyone to know about her past yet, especially because she had a feeling Nox knew more about her past than she did and she was worried that there might be something there that she and the others wouldn’t like. Besides, Renee definitely didn’t want Nox telling them through his twisted lens and with whatever lies he might add. She needed to get some dirt on him as well.

Even though she was tired and bruised after Monday’s game she still went to Elliot’s bar, besides she just couldn’t find anything on the scientist so she just needed a break. It was a sort of welcoming ceremony to the new top legends. They had started doing it when Octavio had joined and Natalie had been the second one to receive this ceremony. None of them actually drank, it was always just meeting the new legend. 

Renee never really cared for these, but she had a reason this time; if Crypto was really a hacker and was skilled enough he may be her best chance to find some information on Nox, as anything she had tired looking into so far came up with nothing. Whatever he had done before he joined the games it must have been bad.

Luckily, the night went well. Crypto actually showed up, while Nox never did. Renee tried to stay with the main group for most of the time, overhearing their conversation with him, but she eventually got sidetracked when Natalie began talking to her.

Something seemed different when she was around the blonde. She couldn’t quite pinpoint what, but it felt like something had changed about the other woman. She may have figured it out if she hadn’t been half listening at that point so she could pick back up on the main group’s conversation.

Renee learned a few things about Crypto. Firstly, he was most likely the hacker she would need. It was brought up during some point in the night the times certain parts of the arena were hacked a while ago. Whether he admitted it or someone knew it was him, she couldn’t quite remember, but he was the one who had messed with the arena systems. It really wasn’t any secret information that symbol that had appeared on the banners for a moment matched the one he had on his technology. If he could mess with the arena’s technology he could probably help her. Secondly, he was very secretive about himself. They still didn’t even know his name, and Renee knew that he had done much worse than they already knew about.

She would have to convince him to help her, but how? As she sat listening to Natalie she kept thinking of what to do, as she doubted he’d just help her for no reason. Then it hit her, she might have some blackmail on him. She was badly wounded in a fight down in the labs one game so she broke down the door to a sealed off room to heal. There was a room with a computer inside that was seperated by glass. There was no entrance to that room inside of the arena, but inside was Crypto. He was doing something on the computer, but his drone spotted her and he quickly finished what he was doing, pulled out a flash drive, then ran. Renee guessed he wouldn’t want those in charge of the games to find out, so she might be able to convince him with it.

Eventually Elliot said he was going to close the bar, and everyone began heading home. After saying goodbye to Natalie, Renee walked up to Crypto.

“What do you want?” He didn’t even bother to look over at her as he was looking through his drone camera. He really took that thing everywhere didn’t he?

“I think you may be of some help to me.” Renée crossed her arms as the hacker shut off his display turning toward her.

“I’m guessing you’re looking for me to get you access to something?”

“I need help finding some information on someone, it’s most likely been hidden from the public eye.”

“What makes you think I’d help you?”

“I’ll keep quiet about seeing you down in the labs a while ago.”

He shook his head, “I was hoping you forgot that.” Placing his hands in his pockets, he grumbled, “fine.”

“Good. I just want to figure out what Nox was up to before he joined the games. If you can find any information or a way for me to get the information I want, I’ll keep quiet.”

“You know, being blackmailed isn’t a great first impression.”

“Well, I hope we can forget about this after, and just be teammates in the arena. You’re gonna have to get used to seeing me there.”

* * *

Tuesday and Wednesday were uneventful aside from the daily games. Thursday was a lot more interesting though. The round for the day had no special rules, but her teammates were Natalie and Nox.

It was better then if it was Nox and another legend as Renee doubted the scientist would try anything with Natalie there. Crypto hadn’t gotten back to her, so she was still trying to be cautious about Nox, but she was about done dealing with him.

As the three of them were on the drop platform Renee looked over at Natalie. The other woman was looking at her already and gave her a warm smile.

“Let’s win this one!”

Renee only nodded to Natalie

* * *

There was a cry of pain, Natalie fell to the ground, too wounded to pick herself up. They were surrounded, Renee knew it and her voices were chanting to get out of there. There was a large firefight going on outside, multiple squads were nearby and one of them was about to push into the building.

Renee quickly moved to try to get Natalie up, pulling out the special injection, but was cut off by her voices telling her a sniper had sights on her. Jumping back quickly, she barely managed to dodge the bullet that’s as aimed for her head. Footsteps were approaching, the squad that had shot Natalie through the window was back to finish the job.

Renee grunted with anger, there was no way she would be able to take a 1v3.

“Caustic! Where are you? Get over here and help!” She called through the intercoms.

She was only met with the sound of guns firing on his end.

“Wraith just go.” Natalie coughed in her weakened state.

“Wattson, I’m not leaving you like this.” She kept looking around, her voices were screaming for her to move, the enemies would be in the room in a matter of seconds.

“You’ll get my card, you have to save yourself.” Natalie crawled to the door, sitting herself down to block it. She was accepting that she was going to die there, and was buying Renee more time.

The voidwalker nodded, “see you soon.” Opening the door, she vanished into the void, only looking back to see Natalie’s body drop to the floor as she was filled with bullets.

She didn’t know why, but the sight bothered her. She had never been bothered by the supposed death of contenders in the arena before, but it hurt to see it happen to Natalie. It was never a pleasant experience, and you could all but feel the pain when it happened, and a shotgun shot at that close range always hurt badly, it usually still hurt after being resuscitated.

Her void energy was depleted and she appeared once again, making her way to a nearby spot where it seemed no enemies were. A sudden fear was creeping over her, what if Natalie never woke up? She knew that the advances of the game’s technology rarely ever failed to reawaken a contestant, but she just couldn’t shake the thought.

No. She shook herself out of her thoughts. ‘Stop thinking like that, Natalie will be fine’ she thought to herself. Checking her map she opened the comms, “Caustic you need to get out of the area you are in, there’s no way I’ll be able to get you back if something goes wrong.”

“All of these test subjects are at the top of my priorities, maybe you should worry about retrieving Miss Paquette’s card, as it seems you let her die back there.” There was a large amount of spite in his tone.

“I didn’t-“ Renee bit her lip. There was no point in arguing with him, so she may as well try to get Natalie back.

She slowly approached the previous building, diving behind cover along the way whenever her voices guided her to. By now, Natalie’s body was gone, in its place was her death box and there was still someone looking into it. Renee raised her shotgun as she snuck right outside the doorway readying herself to make the push inside. She spun through the door, immediately shooting the person at the box, they didn’t have enough time to react before they were down.

“Damn it Wraith.” It was Elliot, she probably scared him shitless with that one. While she heard him, she could no longer see him, besides she didn’t have time to wait for him to reappear so she left him there, grabbing Natalie’s banner card and running.

She was a good distance away from the valley, on her way to the beacon in the airbase. On her way they got Caustic. She had warned him that she wouldn’t be bringing him back if he stayed there, but now he wouldn’t be a problem for her the rest of the game.

Walking up to the beacon, she inserted the banner card, then began typing into the display. There was a minute of silence before the jets of the dropship could be heard. It made its way down to where it was called, opening up the hatch and Renee watched as Natalie jumped out of it. 

Landing clumsily, the blonde steadied herself before falling upon taking her first step. Renee reacted quickly and put her arms around her squadmate to stop her from fully falling over.

“Th- thanks.” Natalie said weakly, she was holding her head.

“You ok?”

“Oui. I don’t think my body is quite ready to be back.”

Renee slowly dragged the engineer over to the nearby circle of walls and sat her down. The blonde put her head against the wall, and closed her eyes.

“I just need a minute or two of rest, are we in a safe place?”

“We seem to be fine for now. I’m gonna leave you with my mastiff and go see if there are any weapons left here, ok?”

Keeping her eyes closed, the blonde nodded.

* * *

After a few trips, Renee brought Natalie some gear and two weapons. Helping the blonde up, Renee watched as she inspected her two weapons. An Eva-8 and Flatline, luckily they weren’t taken earlier in the match.

“You ready?”

“Yes.”

They had to get going whether Natalie was ready or not, as the ring would soon be closing in on them.

The two began on their way, and after a minute or two of running Natalie asked, “what happened to Doctor Caustic, were you not able to get his card?”

“No, I warned him that I wouldn’t be able to save him where he was, but he wouldn’t move. I decided to make getting you back my priority.”

Natalie just smiled at Renee. “It’s not very shocking that you’d choose me over him.” She was giggling at her own electricity joke.

Renee just shook her head, as cheesy as Natalie’s jokes could be, she never got tired of hearing them.

* * *

The ring eventually pushed the two back to the valley where they had started, and they took a risk by running into the bunker, hoping that luck would be on their side and the ring would be closing towards it, giving them the advantage.

Natalie fenced off the entrance to the bunker, and with the back entrance being right in front of the ring, they only had to worry about that front.

After quickly sweeping the rest of the bunker, Renee joined Natalie in the first room. The engineer was already sitting down, and with her own legs aching from all of the running she had done, Renee sat down to join the blonde.

“You okay?” Renee turned to the other woman.

Natalie was holding her head, closing her eyes, she sighed, “I don’t think my body was ready to run that quickly after being brought back so soon.”

“Nat, you’re holding your head, does it still hurt?”

“Wraith, you don’t have to worry about me so much.”

“But Natalie…” so much for arena names. At least hers was well known. “....I do worry about you.”

Sighing, Natalie put her head up against the glass, “My headache is still pretty bad, I just need some rest. We have time right?”

Renee looked at the information display. There were still a few ring movements left, and still a minute until the current one shrank. It was right on the border at the bunker, so it wouldn’t be taking any more of it out of play.

“As long as no one comes here, we have a while.”

The blonde nodded, her eyes still closed, “good.”

After a minute of quiet, Natalie leaned over on Renee, laying her head on the voidwalker’s shoulder. Before, Renee might have been uncomfortable with the closeness, but she was liking having Natalie this close.

“Don’t fall asleep, we’re still in a game.” Renee said to the blonde.

She was met with the back of Natalie’s hand raising up and the engineer the back of her finger over Renee’s lips, “shhh, no talking. It’s quiet time.”

Sighing, Renee closed her own eyes, Natalie always seemed most comfortable in silence, and it was something she could easily give to the woman.

They sat there like that for minutes, neither moving or saying anything. The hum of nearby electric fences somewhat drowned out the beeping of arena alarms. Occasional gunshots could be heard, they slowly got closer as the ring closed.

Renee occasionally glanced down at her display, she watched as the remaining squads kept. Six left. Five left. Four left. Three. Two…

The ring had stopped moving. The speakers announced the beginning of the round, the final ring would stop in the middle of the bunker, the other squad had to come to them.

Renee began getting up, Natalie moved out of the way to let her.

“Thank you.” Natalie opened her eyes to smile at Renee.

“You feel like you’re ready?”

“Oui.”

They both began watching the door, guns drawn. They needed to have some sort of plan since they would most likely be outnumbered.

“I have an idea of what we can do.” Natalie said while still looking through the sight of her gun.

“Hm?”

“You know that maneuver you did on me a while ago where you forced me into the ring?”

“Yeah.”

“The hallways here are too small to avoid the portal, if you can somehow start it in front of them and finish it near the ring as it’s closing before they can get past the portal start, they won’t be able to do anything.”

“Can you make sure they stay back?”

Natalie pointed to some ark stars sitting on the floor, across the room.

“That would work.”

“Oui. You can do your part, right?”

“You can rely on me.”

“Alright, allons-y!”

Natalie retreated further into the bunker, readying to hold the position at the top of the stairs. Renee was ready to start the portal.

Gunshots were heard, as the sirens blared, they were taking down the fences at the entrance. An arc star flew over her head, Natalie was already trying to keep them at bay. It seemed to work, the enemies didn’t immediately show themselves. The ring had to be right at their back, so Renee began the portal. She turned the corner to come face to face with the enemies. Lifeline, Bangalore, and Mirage. Before they could begin firing at her, she was already in the void, passing right through them and reappearing when she was already in the ring. Quickly traveling back through the portal, Renee ran up the stairs to rejoin Natalie. A few bullets hit her, but she quickly took cover at the top of the stairs.

Nodding at the blonde, she began charging a shield cell as the other woman returned fire at the legends. The three had nowhere to go, their only option was to go through the portal then go back quickly. A cloud of smoke covered the portal, they were trying to hide their return. Natalie began throwing arc stars, one of them hit a target it seemed. Mirage came running out of the cloud of smoke, so Renee quickly shot at him. It was a hologram, of course. 

They began firing blindly, just trying to catch them as they tried to come up the stairs.

After a few tense moments the arena speakers announced their victory.

“We did it!” The blonde grabbed Renee in a hug, lifting her up as she spun around. Was she really that strong? After a moment, Natalie set her down, “uhh, sorry. I got a little excited there.”

“Nat it’s fine.” She smiled at the other woman.

* * *

The dropship arrived back at the lounge and the two got off. Tired, Renee sat down in one of the chairs.

“We make a good team.” Natalie sat down next to her.

“More like we got lucky.”

The blonde pouted, “hey, we worked for that win! Or.. you did most of the work. But still!”

Renee just shook her head and smiled.

There was a laugh from the engineer, “I even forgot that Doctor Nox was on our team!”

“Yeah, we played smartly.”

There was a moment of silence before the engineer spoke, “hey, I know we didn’t get to do this last time, but what do you say about celebrating our win? Maybe just getting a drink at Paradise Lounge? I won’t invite Doctor Nox”

“Sounds good.”

Natalie smiled at her, “meet me there in an hour?”

Renee nodded.

* * *

Walking into the bar, Renee spotted Natalie and sitting at the bar. She sat down on the bar stool next to her.

“Hey.” She said to the blonde.

“Bonjour.” Natalie slid a drink to her, “I know you always get the same thing here, so I went ahead and bought your first drink for you.”

“Nat, you shouldn’t have.”

“Nonsense! You deserve it after saving me today.”

The two talked for a bit before they were interrupted, “well if it isn’t a couple of thieves!”

“Quoi?”

Elliot walked up to them, “I see two people here that stole a win from me today!”

“Hey Elliot, how’d you do while going through that death box earlier?”

He frowned at her, “hey, that was not funny I think I almost had a heart attack when you did that.”

“What happened?” Natalie looked to Renee.

“While you were out of the arena, he was stealing from your death box, so I snuck up and shot him with my mastiff.

“I got badly wounded by her twice today, and let me say, that is not fun!”

Natalie laughed, “well now you get a taste of what I felt!”

“Hey, you almost fell asleep during that round!” He pointed at the blonde.

“I just needed some rest is all.”

“Yeah, whatever. We were out fighting while you two were cuddling in there.”

“Cuddling, really?” Renee glared at him.

“What? What else would you call that?”

Renee just pinched the ridge of her nose, shaking her head.

“Well, whatever. Congrats on the win today.”

“Thanks.”

“Merci.”

* * *

Renee walked home with Natalie. She had a good time just talking with the engineer. After the first drink, neither of them got any more, since they were just talking the entire time. The walk home was nice, the cool air blew at Renee’s scarf a bit, the breeze felt nice.

The two stopped at a point where they would part ways.

“It was nice being with you today, Renee.”

“It was nice being with you too.”

Natalie looked away for a moment, like she was hiding a facial expression, “I meant what I said earlier, you don’t have to worry about me like you were.”

“Nat… I worry about you because I care about you. I’d hate for something to happen to you.”

“Renee.” There was a pause, “that’s the difference between you and Doctor Nox. I know he cares for me, but it feels different when it’s from you, and I just can’t describe it.”

Renee just gave a soft smile to Natalie

Looking at her, the engineer softly spoke, “you should do that more often.”

Renee gave her a confused look, “Care about you?”

“No! Smile! You should smile more! You look nice when you smile.”

The voidwalker’s cheeks suddenly felt warm. She should probably finish this up before Natalie noticed.

“Oh, thank you.” She turned, “well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe we can do something then since there’s no game?” There was a break tomorrow because the meeting was Saturday, it had been announced that it would be a large party, so they were giving the legends Friday to prepare.

“Oh, sure! That sounds nice. I’ll message you tomorrow so we can decide what to do.”

“Alright. Good night Nat.”

“Good night...” there was a pause before the engineer spoke up again, “ma chérie.”

Was that new?

* * *

Renee was at home for about half an hour when there was a knock at the door. Slowly opening it, she was met with Crypto on the other side. He looked side to side then nodded at her. She opened the door to let him in then shut it.

“Congrats on the win today.” He pulled out a laptop.

“Thanks. You got anything?”

“Yeah, I got some information on him, you may not like what it is though.”

“Is it bad?”

“There’s a reason why this is very hard to find.”

“So what is it?”

“He used to work for Humbert Labs. They employed him because he was one of the best at making gasses.”

“Obviously” Renee replied.

“There are sealed logs that said he kept requesting to test his gasses on living tissue. They were denied, but he supposedly did some unauthorized experiments, that when Franklin Humbert found out about, he apparently went to confront Nox.”

“What happened?”

“Well any long hidden logs end there, although I was able to find some stories about the incident. The place was burnt to the ground, and Humbert died there. Nox was supposedly found dead in the fire.”

Renee stopped to think for a moment, “so… he burnt the place to the ground and killed Humbert?”

“It seems so. I can see why all of this was kept locked up as a secret. Whether it was Nox himself, or someone else working with Nox, the information was covered up.”

Renee felt a little sick. She had always thought of him as a monster, but… not like that. And Natalie was close with this sociopath.

“Thanks Crypto. You- you can go now. I’ll keep up my end of the deal and stay silent about seeing you.”

He nodded, handing her a flash drive then leaving.

Well, she finally had a way to keep Nox off of her if he got problematic, but…

...he was a lot more dangerous than she had thought he was. It didn’t matter though, he had no business stopping her from being near Natalie, and she wasn’t ready to stay away from the one of the few people she could trust.


	7. Confessions

Natalie had been invited to join a supply scavenge with Ajay and Anita, which she agreed to join. Renee had received a message in the morning for Natalie telling her that they couldn’t meet up like they had planned, but said that she was more than welcome to join. Renee knew that Natalie was looking for anything she would be able to salvage, as it most likely would beat paying for parts, but trips like that could be dangerous at times. She agreed, mostly wanting to be there in case anything bad happened. Ajay and Anita were supposedly going to meet them at the community workshops, so Renee put on her apex games equipment and decided to leave early to visit Natalie, as the engineer had told her that she would be there.

Making her way over to the workshops, Renee walked past the general workspace towards the back rooms. Passing Nox’s lab as she walked, the man inside looked up from what he was working on to glare at her. With what she now knew about the scientist, the glare caused a shiver down her spine. She wasn’t one to get scared by things, but she had no idea how far he might go.

Knocking on the door to Natalie’s workspace, she waited a moment before it was opened. The blonde greeted her with a smile, and invited her in. This was the first time Renee had actually seen the inside of the engineer’s workshop. A few pylons were crowded in one of the corners, fairy lights were strung above in arches across the ceiling. Looking at it for a moment, Renee realized that the lights were arranged in the shape of a lightning bolt. Of course Natalie would do that. On the left was a large board of which equations and words were written. Renee had no idea what some of it meant, but it probably made sense to Natalie. 

Glancing over to the other side of the room, Renee saw a long workbench. The table was cluttered and messy, although a few things stood out. In one corner of the bench was a Nessie doll and a picture of the engineer and Nox, it was the two of them with some sort of invention that they had both worked on. In the other corner were two pictures, one with Natalie and her father, she was much younger in the picture. The other was Natalie and… Renee. It was a press picture of Natalie’s second win, the one that was taken of the victors. More importantly, it was taken when Natalie had grabbed Renee and lifted her up, that moment embarrassed Renee whenever she saw it. Well, more like the whole last part of that game.

Natalie must have noticed Renee looking because she spoke up, “oh that? I umm… that was supposed to be the picture for my first win, but... that one didn’t really feel deserved with how Octavio went out… so umm… I thought that one felt more deserved.” The blonde sounded flustered.

Renee looked to the engineer, a look of embarrassment was on her face…

...no, it was something slightly different, but before Renee could realize Natalie turned away. Wait, had the blonde been blushing? No. No, Renee had to stop thinking like that. There was no way Natalie would ever have the same feelings for her. Why would anyone want to be with Renee? Sure, the woman who can’t even remember her past, great choice. Thinking like that was making Renee feel sick, but Natalie’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

“Renee?”

“Hm?”

“You uh… zoned out there.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

Natalie moved back to the board, she must have been in the middle of writing there before she was interrupted. “You’re here pretty early.”

“I wouldn’t call 15 minutes early.”

“15 minutes?” Natalie looked over to the clock on the wall. Did she really not know what time it was? Renee watched as the engineer quickly began removing the gloves she was wearing. She wasn’t wearing her special equipment yet.

“Are you going to get ready?”

Quickly putting her gloves on her desk and shuffling some papers, Natalie responded, “I got a little too far into my work, and forgot to get ready. I have to hurry!”

Running to the door, Natalie shouted “just wait in the lobby, and if I’m not back by the time they get here tell them I’ll be here soon.” Renee heard quick footsteps out in the hallway as Natalie ran home.

Renee just sat there for a minute, not quite sure what to do. Sighing, she began to walk out into the hallway. How did Natalie lose track of time like that? Renee just laughed it off, the engineer was always excited about her work.

Coming out the door she was met with Nox blocking the way back into the main area of the building. There was complete silence as Renee was completely still. He was a good 5 feet away, right past the entrance to his lab, it would be easy to go down the other end of the hallway and just go towards the back exit. Deciding that would be the easiest option, she turned to begin walking away, but the scientist spoke up.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you Miss Blasey.” Renee hated when he said her name.

“And why not?” She didn’t hide her hatred in her words.

“I would like to have a little talk with you.”

“And why would I do that?”

“You are very aware of the information that I know, and the fact that you don’t know some of what I know. Come into my laboratory.”

“Why can’t we talk here?”

“This will reduce the chance of anyone else overhearing our conversation.”

Drawing her Kunai, Renee pointed it at him. “You better be well aware that I’m keeping this out if I’m going with you.”

“Fine.”

“You go in first, head to the other side of the room.” Renee kept the blade pointed at him. He followed her directions slowly, glaring at her as he did.

Renee made her way to the opposite side of the room as him and lowered her arm, but kept the kunai in hand.

“So, what did you want to say?”

“I want you to stay away from Miss Paquette. You are becoming a bigger and bigger distraction to her. She doesn’t need someone like you wasting her time that she could be working. Besides, I’d rather not have someone like you around her.”

Renee was silent for a moment, what did he have against her?

“What do you have against me? Why do you care so much? You act like you’re her father, and that is the last thing you could be.”

“I’m simply looking out for Miss Paquette.”

“And if I don’t listen to you?”

“Well, I tell everyone about your past.”

Renee shook her head, “I’m no longer the person that you’d be talking about.”

“Possibly. While it seems the syndicate doesn’t care about it as much, they still have to keep an eye on you at times. I hope you know that they do.”

Renee clenched her fist. God, was she seen as a threat to everyone?

“Besides, the syndicate won’t be the ones that you should be worried about. The public would have very different reactions. It would be very unpredictable how they would see it, and no matter how they did see it, you would be forever pestered with others asking you about your past.”

“If whatever you know about who I used to be is so bad, then why don’t you just tell me about it? What if this whole time you’re just making it seem worse than it is?”

“I won’t be doing that Miss Blasey. I’d rather you not know until you’re being questioned about it.”

Renee didn’t want to deal with this any more. She needed to keep him quiet, but she had no idea what he would do if he knew that Renee had found out about his past.

This scientist… no… this sociopath in front of her would threaten her no more.

Her body tensed, she was preparing herself to respond physically to whatever would happen next.

“I don’t think you’re in the position to be making demands Nox.”

“And why is that?”

“I did a little research of my own, and it turns out you had a job before killing people in the arena… although it seems things haven’t changed much.”

The feeling in the room changed instantly, an enormous feeling of anxiety washed over Renee, but she kept herself calm at the surface. Nox’s face twitched, his glare burning into her soul.

“Nothing happened in my past.”

“I’m sure Humbert would agree.” Renee said, lacing her speech with a venom that she wasn’t aware that she could.

“How did you find out? Who helped you?”

“I found out alone, why does it matter to you?”

He was silent.

“Here’s what’s going to happen, you leave me alone, you say nothing about my past, and in return, I don’t tell Natalie and everyone else about your incident at Humbert Labs. Sounds good?”

“You’re pathetic.” Renee saw him move behind a nearby counter.

“Whatever. We’re done here.” Renee began moving towards the lab entrance. “You’re a monster Nox, but I hope you’re changed since then.”

Even though she had the kunai pointed at him, she hadn’t been fully focused, and she wasn’t able to react fast enough when a canister was dropped behind her. Gas exploded out of it, and she instinctively walked forward to get away from it, playing right into his plan.

Grabbing her by the throat, he stared her in the eyes. “I’ll have you know that you won’t get me removed from the games by saying that, I’m already protected from that incident by some higher ups, but if you say anything to Miss Paquette, you and Humbert will have something in common.”

He didn’t hold her tight enough, and she managed to slice her kunai along his arm. In reaction he slammed her down on a nearby counter, right on top of a few beakers. Shards of glass sliced into Renee’s back, some sort of liquid pooled around her arm, whatever it was, it was burning. In a pure fight or flight response, Renee lifted her feet and kicked him back. She was light headed, but she was more focused on surviving, quickly getting herself up, she moved in on Nox. He was already better off than her as he blocked most of her attempts to slice at him, but she found an opening eventually, and stabbed her kunai into his side. There was a groan from him, but he delivered a strong blow to her gut in response.

Taking her kunai with her, she stumbled to the ground. Nox lifted his leg to slam it down on her, she was barely able to roll to the side to dodge, taking the opportunity to stab her kunai into his leg. His reaction was louder this time. She hoped it hurt like hell. She grabbed the nearest counter, she almost couldn’t lift herself. There was extreme pain coming from her back, and her throat felt tight. This was nothing like those games, it hurt so much more. She instinctively began changing up energy then disappeared into the void. Trying to move to the door, her legs gave out. In desperation she tried to get back up, but she was already back in reality, her body had not been ready to be in the void. Nox grabbed her by the throat again, this time his hold was tight. Her vision was fading, and she closed her eyes, putting her arms to her throat. She was slammed back against something, she shards of glass digging further into her back. She screamed in pain. 

She was about to pass out, sounds were becoming distant, her eyes no longer wanted to open. She heard a new voice say something, Nox responded to whoever was there.

There was a sudden jolt… of electricity? Renee felt the grip on her throat disappear, and a wave of pain traveled up her body as she must have fallen to the floor. Whatever had just happened, had given her just enough strength to open her eyes. Everything was blurry, but she could still make out Natalie’s face. The blonde was trying to say something to her, but Renee could feel herself slipping away again.

Closing her eyes, Renee gave into her tiredness.

* * *

Beeping. That was the first thing she could make out. Next, pain. Everything hurt. She could hear herself let out a groan. She finally opened her eyes, taking everything in as she did. She was in what looked like a hospital bed. This wasn’t a hospital though, she had seen this place before, it was Ajay’s private care room.

“You’re awake.” A voice said from beside her. Renee turned to see Natalie sitting there.

She tried to lift herself up, but Natalie pressed her down.

“No, ma chérie. You need to rest more. Ajay had to remove a lot of glass from your back.”

Renee gave in, and closed her eyes.

There was a sniffle from beside her as she heard Natalie ask, “what happened between back there? Did you really attack Doctor Nox?”

Attack him? Shit. Nox must have acted like she had started it. Renee only groaned in response.

“I… I know you can’t really talk right now, so I’ll just let you be. I’m going to go get Ajay really quickly, so she can check up on you. Don’t fall asleep in the time I’m gone ok?”

Renee nodded.

* * *

After a visit from the combat medic, Renee fell back asleep. When she finally woke up, she was a lot more conscious. Looking around, she saw Natalie sitting on the floor in the nearby corner of the room. The woman had her head against the wall and was asleep. She had waited for Renee…

Everything was still pretty sore, so the voidwalker decided to lie still so as to not wake Natalie. Instead she saw her kunai on the table next to her, all of the blood that had been on it from earlier was gone. She carefully leaned over to grab it and began examining the dagger to pass the time. Eventually one of her voices spoke up ‘beside you.’

Looking over, Renee saw Natalie rubbing her eyes as she awoke. The blonde looked up and Renee looking back at her.

“You slept well?” She stood herself up, it was now that Renee noticed she was still in her arena outfit.

“Yeah. You’ve been here ever since I was brought in haven’t you?”

Natalie nodded, “I was worried. I… I don’t know what I would have done if anything worse had happened.”

Renee looked down, trying to recall the final moments before she had passed out in Nox’s lab. When she failed to do so she asked, “What happened right before I passed out?”

“I…” Natalie looked hurt, “I told Doctor Nox to put you down. And… he wouldn’t…

He said that you attacked him, and were out of control. I… is that what happened? Did you attack him?”

Renee shook her head. “It was self defense, he grabbed me by the throat.” She was now realizing just how raspy her voice was.

Natalie looked aside, a large frown was showing. Sighing, she looked back at Renee, “I didn’t know what to think at that moment… I just… I was worried for you, and I just reacted. I… shocked him.”

“Serves him right.” Renee grumbled.

“Renee, why did he attack you?”

She didn’t know how to respond, if she told Natalie the truth, she wouldn’t be safe anymore. She wasn’t safe anyways, now she would just be hoping that Nox would stay away from her. Not knowing what to say, she just kept silent.

“Renee, please tell me.”

The engineer was met with silence again.

“Renee!” There was an urgent tone in her voice. The voidwalker could no longer keep herself from being silent.

“I can’t.”

“Why not? What did he say? What did he do? Did something happen? Why can’t you tell me?”

“Nat, it’s safer this way.”

“SAFER?” Natalie was practically yelling at this point. She had broken eye contact with Renee, but looked back at that moment, there was a trail of tears down her cheek.

“Nat, are you ok-“

“No I’m not ok. I just saw you almost get choked to death by someone that is close to me, and you won’t even tell me why.” She was moving to put her hands over her ears.

“Nat-“

“And what do you mean by safer? How is any of this safer? Is it safer for me? How-“

“Nat!” That caught her attention. She was shaking, Renee had never seen her like this. The voidwalker moved to the side of the bed, giving Natalie enough room to sit on the bed.

The blonde noticed the movement and sat down facing away from Renee.

“It’s just, I’ve lost my trust in someone today, and now that you’re awake I know it’s not you. I’ve spent this whole time hoping it wasn’t you.”

Natalie suddenly changed her position to be lying on the bed next to Renee.

“Ajay told me to be careful when you woke up, that she wasn’t sure if you’d lash out like Doctor Nox had claimed you did earlier. I.. I never believed that you would do that, so I stayed.”

Natalie looked to Renee.

“I was worried about you.”

Renee managed a smile.

There was a sudden uneasiness on the face of the engineer.

“You okay?” Renee looked at her inquisitively.

“Renee.”

“Yeah?” She could almost feel nervousness, as if she could feel what Natalie was feeling.

“Waiting to hear if you were okay or not…” she choked on a few of the words. “It made me realize…” it looked like words were trying to come out, but the blonde couldn’t say them.

“Nat… are you ok?”

“It made me realize…” Her next words were barely audible, like she didn’t want them to be heard. “That I love you.”

Natalie looked down, she was waiting for a response, more than likely fearing for what it might be.

Renee though, froze. Was this real? She didn’t know how to respond. In her silence, she heard Natalie say, “If.. you don’t feel the same way, I hope this won’t affect our friendship at all.”

Was she ready for a relationship? She still didn’t even know who she used to be, but… did it even matter? No, it didn’t.

“Nat…” the engineer looked to Renee in anticipation. “Wow I didn’t think I’d be confessing my love in a hospital bed.”

There was instantly a large smile on Natalie’s face. “Are you sure you’re not here because you are lovesick?”

The voidwalker groaned at that one. Putting her head back she asked, “what do you even see in me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why do you like me Nat?”

“You say that like it's bad that I like you.”

Renee sighed, “well it’s not like there’s much reason for someone to like me.”

Natalie put her hand on the woman’s thigh, “maybe to others, but you are special to me. You care about me, you listen to me when I just want to talk about my work, you’re there for me when I need you, you trained with me when I was still new to the games, and you don’t seem to care about what makes me… different.” There was a sight pause before she continued, “what I’m saying is that I don’t think I could see myself with anyone else.”

Taking in the comfort of the moment, Renee leaned her head onto Natalie’s shoulder, “you know how much older I am then you.”

“It doesn’t matter chérie.”

Renee chuckled, “you started calling me that a day ago, I’m guessing it means a little bit more than friend?”

“Yeah, I kind of let it slip recently, I was just glad you didn’t know what it meant. And… it’s Saturday Renee.”

“Wait, Saturday? What time is it?”

“Umm, seven thirty.”

“At night?”

“Yes Renee, you were asleep for a while.”

“You should be at the meeting or, well… the party by now.”

“I’d much rather be here with you. You’re a lot quieter than a party would.”

“Oh yeah, you don’t like loud noises.”

“Besides, you’re the only company I’d like to have right now.”

Renee lifted her head and her eyes met Natalie’s.

“Feel calm?” The blonde asked.

“Hm?”

“Your eyes are blue, chéri. I’ve been around you long enough to know that only happens when you’re calm. Besides, you look beautiful when they’re like that.”

Renee forgot her eyes did that at times, “th- thanks.”

Their faces were close, Renee could almost feel the warmth of the other woman’s cheeks from the distance.

“If we’re really going to have a relationship, we have to take it slow. I’m… not used to feelings like this.”

“That would be for the best, chéri. I’m also new to this.”

“We should keep this a secret for now.”

“You afraid Elliot’s going to make fun of you?”

“No!”

Natalie moved a bit closer, every small feature of her face was visible, the little freckles and the scar that ran down the side of her face stuck out. In the moment, the two women both moved in.

Lips met, and Renee felt like she would wake up from a dream at any moment. It never happened though, and Renee just took in the bliss of the moment.

They were disrupted by the door of the room slamming open, “ya better be awake by now Renee, if not it’s time to get up.”

The two women weren’t able to spectate in time, and Ajay definitely saw them moving apart.

The combat medic paused as she walked in, “oh, was I interrupting somethin’?”

Natalie got up, both women had a look of embarrassment on their faces.

“I didn’t think ya’d still be here Natalie.”

“Well, I am.”

“Are ya two a-“

“Please don’t say anything.” Renee spoke up.

Ajay raised her hands, “I saw nothin’.”

Renee gave her a look of thanks.

Breaking the awkward silence, Natalie spoke up, “so, did we miss anything?”

“Yeah, ya missed a lot.”

Natalie sat down in a nearby chair and Renee moved back to the center of the bed.

“So, to start with. The games are moving, for a couple months. They built a new arena on the planet Talos, they’re callin’ it ‘World’s Edge’.”

“We’re going to be moving there?”

“Yeah, pretty soon. We have a week or two to pack.”

Renee and Natalie exchanged eye contact.

“They’re also changing how they’re housin’ us. We’re going to be getting rooms in a single buildin’. Since we’re the best of the best, we’ll be getting the penthouses at the top.”

“Well, that’s nice.” Renee spoke up.

“Although it seems ya two might wanna request a single room.” Ajay chuckled to them.

Renee glared at her, “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to leave this in arms reach.” She lifted her kunai, pointing it at Ajay.

“I know very well that ya not gonna stab me, especially since I still need to check up on ya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, here it is, the moment where they both find out. Also a little bit of violence.


End file.
